A Step Closer
by Anonymous033
Summary: Ziva struggles with her return from Somalia, while Tony struggles with trying to help her. A story about love, recovery, and moving on from past demons. Ziva-centric fic told from Tony's perspective, with team chapters and Tiva-related themes. High T for swearing, mature topics, and semi-graphic descriptions. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter One

**Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS.**

**Spoilers: Major ToC (considering it's the premise of the fic, anyway). Minor Aliyah and possibly everything else Tiva. General NCIS.**

**Setting: AU, post-ToC. This takes place after Ziva has been discharged from the hospital, and her behaviour is slightly different from when she had first come back, because things have finally caught up. In this story, Tony takes a month off after returning from Somalia.**

**Warning: High T, because of dark story lines and uh ... general messed-up-ness. This story is not recommended for young readers.**

**So guess what Sophie did, since she had a dissertation to do :P yes, she wrote. But she's handed in her first draft to her dissertation supervisor now, so she has time to write :D and so arriveth a new fic! In this fic, Ziva is ... all over the place, shall we say? That's not likely to change for a while, so before going into this fic, please be aware that if you're looking for a fluff fix, you're in the wrong place.**

**Enjoy!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

**Chapter One**

His gut tells him that something is not quite right the moment he steps in front of the door.

He pushes the feeling aside because, after all, he isn't Gibbs; the last time he'd followed his gut, he had ended up killing Ziva's boyfriend and sending the woman he loved to the other end of the world to be tortured.

Sure, he had then saved her, but it's still different. His gut has never _not _led him astray before.

He doesn't realize how long he's stood motionless in front of her door, his mouth gaping open stupidly with one fist raised to knock, until she appears in the doorway.

The first thing he notices, with choked breath, is how there's no light in her eyes. They are dull; lifeless.

The next thing he notices—and it's then that he believes his gut—is that there's no light in her living room, either. The brown walls of her temporary home leave something to be desired, of course, but it's not really that. It's not really _anything, _in fact, and perhaps that's what terrifies him.

There are no signs of life in the room, and yet there are no signs of non-life. There is an unmade bed with its cover half-falling onto the floor, an opened (and distinctly gross-looking) pizza box lying on the table, and a chair sitting in the middle of the room; it is as if the place had once held life that had been forced to abandon the space suddenly, and that scares the living daylights out of him because he knows for a fact that Ziva has been staying in the room for the past two days. Yet, like her eyes, the room simply holds _nothingness._

"Uhm, so that's why Gibbs asked me to check in on you," he breathes out, but she doesn't reply. He wipes his palms on his trousers. "How are you?"

It's a stupid question at best, but there isn't even the trademark impatient flicker in her eyes. "Fine."

He pauses. "Can I come in?"

She moves aside to permit his entrance into the room, and he swallows the lump in his throat. Something is off about her—compliant and robotic in her movements, she doesn't even step aside like _Ziva _would have anymore.

"Have you been eating?" He doesn't know why that question pops into his mouth—maybe it's the sight of the barely touched box of pizza on her table. It's looking soggy and maybe a bit green, but that may just be his imagination.

She makes a tiny shrugging motion. "I had half a slice of pizza yesterday."

He whirls to face her. "Half a slice?_ Yesterday?_"

"You asked me, yes?" _Well, at least she still talks like herself._

"Y-yeah," he splutters, "But Zi, that's not _enough._"

"I know." She says it unashamedly.

"Ziva." His voice comes out more shocked than he'd expected, but he can't help it. Her empty eyes drift up.

"Yes?"

"Are you mad at me?" It's the second question of the night that he doesn't know why he's asked. Maybe because it's the one that's been on the tip of his tongue since he _hadn't _knocked on the door, or maybe because it's the one that he's wanted the answer to for months. Or maybe … maybe he just wants to know if she hates him for not having gotten to her sooner.

Now is not the time to ask such questions, really, but he can't bear not knowing any longer.

"No," she answers, but he can't let go of the breath he's holding because she still stares right through him, rather than _at _him.

"Why aren't you eating?" he asks quietly, the words scraping his throat raw.

"I'm not hungry."

"Why aren't you hungry?"

"I don't know." He sees a hint of emotion in her eyes for the first time—a tinge of despair, quick as a flash, before it's gone.

"Do you … do you want to eat?"

"I do not mind either way."

"Alright. How 'bout we get you changed, and then we go ou—"

"No." Her voice, loud and panicked, cuts through the middle of his sentence. She stumbles a step back, her breath hitching in her throat; he freezes, unsure of what he's said, when the words tumble out of her mouth in a slurred, uncensored rush. "No going out. I'm a mess. No going out."

"Okay, okay," he replies, trying to reassure her even before the words register in his mind. "No going out. Wait, what do you mean, you're a mess?"

"I'm a mess," she just repeats, resolute in her assertion, if nothing else.

"Ziva, you're not a mess." He steps cautiously towards her, and she stumbles back another step, her eyes widening with panic again.

"Tony, go," she pleads.

He halts in his footsteps, uncertain of what to do. He can't _go. _He can't leave her here, in this state, whatever state this is, even if he can't help; he can't leave her to defend herself alone from the demons that he can't see.

In that moment, he recognizes that he can't _anything. _Can't go, can't stay, can't leave, can't help. A sob gets stuck halfway up his throat.

She's staring at him (_at _him, not _through _him) now, her figure small and vulnerable with her arms wrapped around herself and her eyes swirling with what looks like hurt and confusion.

"Ziva, I can't go." His tone begs her to understand.

"Why not?" she asks in a small voice.

"Because I'm worried about you."

"You don't have to worry about me." The answer lacks so much of her old passion that he wonders if it's just the default she gives.

"I am, anyway."

"Okay."

He blinks. "'Okay'?"

"You are worried about me." She nods. "I understand."

He suppresses the involuntary shudder that threatens to run through him. "Why are you being so understanding?"

"I understand," she merely says again, sinking into a squat, and his heart pounds with the worry that brain damage is not entirely out of the question.

He squats down opposite her, wincing at the way his knee cracks. "Do you really?" he asks, and she nods, swaying slightly. "Are you tired?"

She nods again.

"Do you want to sleep?" he tries, and she bites her lip.

"They come in my sleep," she offers brokenly, and something deep in his chest twists with pain.

"I'll keep them away," he whispers.

"You cannot, Tony. No one can."

"Let me try." She looks up at him then, her brown eyes brightening just the tiniest bit; behind them, he sees fear but gratitude, and he feels light-headed from the roar in his ears that _she is still here. _Her hand twitches without moving from its spot around her lower legs, but he recognizes the gesture for what it is. "I'm just going to hold your hand, okay?"

She bites her lip again and nods, and he wraps his hand around hers, ignoring the way the rest of her body seems to recoil from him. She stands when he pulls her up and, with her permission, takes up her other hand to lead her to the bed, shuffling backwards slowly like one would while acting as a crutch to an older person.

Except Ziva isn't old; she is merely broken.

Tears spring into his eyes against his will.

Once at the bed, she stands around helplessly until he gently instructs her to sit down. "Have you forgotten how to use a bed?" he teases lightly, and she gazes at the mattress around her.

"I did not have a bed in Somalia."

He pauses. "So you've really forgotten how to use a bed?"

"No, of course not." The slightest amount of derision seeps into her voice. "I just … do not know how to get comfortable in one anymore."

"But you slept in a bed in the hospital, didn't you?"

"They sedated me."

"Oh."

She remains silent as she tentatively shifts a leg onto the bed, followed by another; a look of intense discomfort comes onto her face as she lies back and rests her hands flat on her stomach. It's such an eerily funereal pose that he swallows and tries not to look at anything other than her face, where her brows are scrunched in concentration.

"How did you sleep last night?" he questions.

"I did not sleep. I passed out."

Trepidation fills his being. "From alcohol?"

"No. I just passed out."

"Oh," he answers again, feeling helpless. "How 'bout I stay here till you fall asleep?"

"I thought … that was the plan," she replies, and it floors him so much that he starts to laugh. Of _course _it had been the plan, but he had forgotten it all in light of the new revelations.

He doesn't know whether it's stress or overwhelming relief at her interaction that causes the room to ring with his laughter, but at least a corner of her lips quirks up, and her eyes dance a tiny bit. He takes a deep breath and pats at one of her hands, not finding it in himself to be sad even though she flinches a little bit. "Yeah, it's the plan," he assures her, drawing the chair up to her bedside. He sobers and smiles at her. "Do you want me to hold your hand?"

She actually looks like she ponders that. "It would be nice," she says eventually, albeit with reluctance.

He reaches out and slips her thin hand into his again; not threading his fingers between hers because that would be too much presumption and intimacy, but daring to give her a squeeze. Her lips twitch momentarily with the shadow of a smile again.

"Sleep well," he says, wishing he could say more, but she only nods once again and closes her eyes, her fingers twitching around his in the semblance of a possessive hold, as if to keep him there for the entire night.


	2. Chapter Two

**A few notes, because I was running on almost no sleep yesterday and forgot:**

**1) This is a multi-chapter fic which I won't be updating consistently, because I find that my schedule is far too irregular for that, but which I will post a new update every four days at _least. _Sometimes I'll have had time to reply to reviews before that, sometimes I won't have had time; but rest assured, I reply to every signed review :D**

**2) This, while not really a blatantly shipper fic, does focus quite a bit on Tony's romantic feelings for Ziva. Not so much in the "Let's work towards a relationship" sense as the "Is it ethically right for me to love her" manner (you'll see), but just a warning here :P I figure most of you already know that, considering my usual stuff, but for new readers...**

**3) When I said Ziva was going to be all over the place, I meant Ziva was going to be all over the place XD her healing is not consistent, and when she experiences a setback, it's actually pretty drastic. It sometimes also doesn't make sense, because anything can trigger a reaction which hadn't been expected. So :D**

**4) I haven't had a lot of experience in dealing with clients who have PTSD or anxiety disorders. I haven't had any experience, actually D: considering I'm far yet from getting my license. I have studied these before, but ... whatever happens here is not intended to be medical advice! Or something like that :D and it might also not be the "conventional" type of healing, but then, everyone experiences trauma and subsequent healing in a different way. Just a disclaimer :P**

**Enjoy! I hope I haven't forgotten anything. And thank you, _thank you _so much to all of you who reviewed or favourited or set out alerts for this story. _Thank you. _You don't know how much it means to me!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

**Chapter Two**

It's two hours before he breaks.

"Ziva," he finally groans, sitting up from his slumped-down position in the chair as she opens her eyes to look at him. "I can hear you thinking. Go to sleep."

She clucks with irritation. "I'm trying. It's this bed. It is too _soft._"

He sighs and proposes the idea that he's been thinking about for the past half hour. "Would you like to sleep on the floor instead?"

He expects a paperclip in his jugular for even daring to suggest that, but she just struggles into a sitting position and gives a single nod without looking at him. Not a peep comes from her as she slides off the bed onto the ground, indifferent to her pillow and blanket until he makes her put the former under her head and the latter over her body. Then he settles cross-legged beside her, taking up her hand again and brushing his thumb over her skin for as quickly as he thinks he can get away with it. He's about to tell her to sleep when she speaks up again, quietly and with great defeat.

"I cannot get used to it."

"Get used to what?"

She breathes out. "The bed is too soft. The pizza is too soggy. Even the water … it tastes funny. Clean. I do not like it."

"You'd rather have dirty water?" He tries to keep the tone of incredulity out of his voice and the tone of concern in it.

In a surprisingly quick motion for someone who can barely stand on her own two feet, she brushes the back of her hand across her eyes. "I want what is familiar."

"Ziva…" He hesitates before finally kicking his legs out from underneath himself and sliding into a half-prone position, making sure to keep a foot between them at all times. "'Familiar' was bad for you."

"I know."

He wants to yell at her, in all honesty. Shake her out of her apathy, her self-pity, her … whatever she's in right now. He wants her _back. _But he also knows that just as much as it's unreasonable for him to want her old self back, just as much as it's unreasonable for her to want 'familiar' back, it is not unreasonable for people to want what makes sense to them.

And so, he tries to understand.

Her eyes flicker all over the place as she tries to avoid his gaze, but she finally cracks under the silent pressure. "I don't want … _him _back," she begins, her voice shaky. "He hurt me. But t-… I got used to not drinking much and not eating much, and now that I am here, people expect me to…. There was a doctor who said I might never regain normal functioning in my life. He did not mean to tell me, but I heard him talking to Gibbs. They tried to get me to go to a psychiatrist, but I refused. There is no point. I do not need someone to tell me that I am not normal. I _know _I am not normal. I am back here, s-safe, and all I want is to go back to w-when I had no food to eat, Tony."

Her voice cracks at his name, a slightly hysterical whimper that feels like a lance being driven through his heart. She is shaking hard; he wishes so, so much that he could just gather her into his arms and kiss her worries away. Guilt and self-loathing battle each other in him as she raises a hand to brush away her tears, and her voice when she speaks again is almost unearthly in the pain it carries. "I'm sorry," she cries. "You brought me back, but all I want to do is die."

xoxo

He doesn't know how she ends up tangled in his embrace or _why _she lets him hold her, but that is how they find themselves half an hour later, when _his _tears have finally stopped. He can tell—he doesn't know how; he just can—that she doesn't move out of his arms not because she needs him or because she knows he needs the comfort, but because she simply doesn't care anymore.

It scares him, the way she doesn't care. He could strangle her right now, and it wouldn't matter to her. He could be violent towards her, and she probably wouldn't twitch a single muscle. He could confess his love to her with a bunch of red roses and a guitar outside her window, actually, and she would not hear it. She just _doesn't care, _as if her soul has walked right out of her body and not looked back; as if what he's holding is merely a shell that looks like her—and in some ways, that scares him even more than her death, because he needs for her to be _okay. _He knows it's wishful thinking, but better the tears before than the indifference now, for how do you save a woman who doesn't want to be saved?

He startles when her head suddenly lolls against his shoulder, and looks down to discover that she's fallen asleep; tired out from the emotions, he surmises. He's pretty weary himself. It would be so easy to just close his eyes….

But, no. She needs him. She needs him to stay awake and keep the monsters away.

He has no idea how he is supposed to do that. His offer had sounded like a noble, chivalrous one, yet everyone knows that he's anything but; a class clown with a record of mistakes a mile long and a penchant for fooling around, he suspects that if her nightmares were ever to haunt her, he would be the first to run away with terror fresh in his mind and her screams still ringing in his ears. He _doesn't know how to do this. _He has _never _been a rock before, contrary to what Abby suggests at times. Brave, sure. Loyal, maybe. Perhaps even with good intentions. But to be the glue that holds together the shattered pieces of the strongest woman he has ever seen? That has to be impossible.

She needs more than him.

"Tony, shut up," she murmurs suddenly, and he jumps a bit. "I can hear you thinking."

She appears to fall back asleep before he can even come up with a witty retort, but it makes him smile and tighten his arm around her just the tiniest bit. He has no idea how she will react when she wakes up the next day (somehow, murder-via-paperclip doesn't even seem like an option anymore), but he needs to do this tonight—he needs to hold her for just this while.

If only just to convince himself that it's a good thing if he's still in her life.


	3. Chapter Three

**Sorry for the rapid updates! It's only because I'm going to London for the next three days, and so won't be updating (or replying to reviews, unfortunately) then. But I'll get to everything when I come back :P**

**Oh, I may've forgotten to mention (_again_) that Tony hadn't spoken to anyone since he returned home from Somalia :P self-imposed silence. So. Onwards!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

**Chapter Three**

_She didn't have nightmares during the night. _That's the first thing that pops into his mind as he jerks awake at the loud banging on the door.

The second thing is that he wouldn't have known if she'd had, anyway, considering he'd fallen asleep when he had not ever been supposed to.

He isn't quite done berating himself when Ziva's voice cuts into his consciousness. "There's someone at the door," she says without making to get up herself, as if she's a young child who isn't allowed to answer the door without an adult by her side. He manages to get his crackly limbs into a sitting position with some help from her, and steps over her feet to get to the door.

Abby bustles in, bringing life and noise with her like early morning sunshine. She starts to unpack onto the dining table what turns out to be a mountain-load of microwaveable meals, talking a mile a minute while Ziva's eyes progressively widen with what he perceives might be an urge to throw up. So, he lays a hand on Abby's arm and drags her out of the room with him, but doesn't make it ten feet before she starts yelling at him in whispers.

"Why weren't you at the hospital?"

He bristles defensively. "I didn't realize I report to you now, Abby. Why couldn't I not be at the hospital?"

"Ziva was looking for you!"

He gesticulates wildly towards the opened doorway. "_Look at her._ She's not looking for anyone. She probably doesn't even want me there."

"Yes, she does."

"How do you know?"

"Okay, fine, I don't know. But she needs _someone _there. This is your mess, Tony; you're supposed to clean it up!"

"So you _do _agree that _I _landed her in Somalia," he retorts sharply.

"I didn't s—"

"You don't have to say anything, Abby. I can hear it in your voice. Why the hell do you think I wasn't at the hospital? You think I wanna mess up her life any more than it already is?"

"Then why are you here now?"

He freezes, his stomach twisting impossibly as he fights the urge to fall to his knees. "Well, I guess I was just leaving, then," he answers through numb lips.

"Tony, you don't get to walk away right now."

"What do you want me to do?" he snarls, his anger back in a flash. "Pick one, Abby, because I'm not in the mood for your indecisiveness."

"Really? You think _I'm _indecisive? What happened yesterday when you suddenly decided to show up after three weeks of not visiting her in the hospital?"

"_Gibbs _asked me to come!"

"And you're here because of Gibbs?"

"No!" he hisses. "I'm here because I need to make sure she's okay; but what the hell do you want me to say, Abby? She's definitely not okay. That's why I'm still here. I'm sorry if that gets in the way of your plans, but _I'm not leaving._"

Abby throws up her hands. "She needs you to be _consistent, _Tony."

"And what are you implying?"

"I'm implying that you either scram and stay away for the rest of your short life, because I'm definitely gonna kill you if you stay away; or stay here, and stay here until she gets better. You don't get to change your mind every five minutes, Tony, which is what you just did."

He sighs in defeat and rubs his forehead hard. "I don't know what to do."

"You think any of us know what to do?"

"Well, _you _seem to have it all figured out."

The resounding _slap _makes practically his whole face sting. Abby glares at him, her eyes teary and face contorted with rage, her person a study in contradictions.

It is a whole minute before he can bring himself to speak again. "I'm sorry, Abs."

"I mean it, Tony," she answers with quiet fury. "_Figure out _what you wanna do. Because you're not the one who had to watch Ziva strain her eyes for _three weeks_ and know that she was looking for a _hint _that you'd shown up _at all._"

She spins on her heels and walks away, her figure radiating tenseness as she steps back into the room. Strangely enough, it's now his turn to feel like throwing up.

xoxo

Abby leaves after spending an hour with them, during which Ziva makes an extremely awkward attempt to converse normally and he is torn between tidying up—or, more accurately, _livening _up—the place and sitting on the bed beside Ziva in support. As the goth bids them goodbye, he catches a warning glint in her eye and knows that he will not be forgiven until he has made a decision. Abby is understanding and quick to forgive, but only if she feels that a wrong has been, or is about to be, righted.

Watching Ziva stare somewhat apprehensively at the only container of food on the table—he'd put away the rest—he knows in his heart what his choice has to be. His mind may be screaming that he's the _worst _candidate ever for playing nurse; but he can't leave her side, because judging by all the ready-made meals Abby had brought, the goth has no idea of what Ziva had confessed to him the night before, and neither has Gibbs. It's down to him, then, to make sure that Ziva eats normal food at all rather than lives off dry bread for the rest of her life.

"Are you going to make me eat that?" she finally asks, breaking his train of thought as she clears her throat nervously. He meets her eyes, prepared to say 'Yes,' but is taken aback by the fear and, yet, submissiveness in them. She is not at all prepared to take on such a daunting task, but has none of her fighting spirit left.

"I'm guessing you don't want to eat that," he proposes gently, and her head gives the tiniest side-to-side motion. "We gotta make sure you get something in your stomach, though."

"This is hard."

"I know. But you don't have to eat the whole thing right now. I could take out a bit and heat that up, and we could keep the rest in the fridge."

Something flickers through her eyes. "You keep saying 'we.'"

He pauses. He hadn't noticed that, honestly. "Does it bug you if I do?"

"No."

She doesn't elaborate, so he can only sigh and take the container over to her, ignoring the way her nose wrinkles as he shoves the food beneath it. "How much do you want?"

He knows she doesn't hit him for asking such a parent-child-like question only because she couldn't care less. She simply draws a random line through the air above the container. "I could try this much."

"Okay, but tomorrow you gotta have more. Are you prepared to do that?"

She barely peers at him. "I guess."

"Ziva…" He lowers the container and squats so that he can look up at her seated figure. "I'm gonna need more involvement from you."

"Why?" Her voice is a hint of sharp for the first time that day.

"Because you need to take care of yourself if you want to get better."

"What if I don't want to get better?"

He forces down the huge lump in his throat at her indifference, the discomfort causing his eyes to water. "Do you really not want to?"

She chews on her bottom lip. "It is a lot of work."

"No one said it'd be easy."

"Exactly."

He feels his throat close in all of a sudden, robbing him of all air and light, and she blinks at him, confusion seeping into her expression.

"Tony?" she calls, actually sounding concerned.

"Uhm," he chokes out with a cough, and stops, brushing his hand beneath his nose. "It's just … I was just hoping you'd try harder."

She gazes at him for a long time. A multitude of emotions plays across her face as she does so, but she stays mum, only gazing at him for longer than she's done for the entire time that he's been there. When she eventually lifts her hand, he is indescribably gratified to discover that the portion of food she now indicates is marginally larger than the previous one.

"This much," she only says, and he rushes to do as she needs.


	4. Chapter Four

**LOL, it would be prudent to mention that the more chapters I write to this (I'm at Chapter Fifteen now, believe it or not), the more of a shipper fic it's turning into O.o still not with a get-together focus, but it does deal heavily with Tony's feelings for Ziva. It also focuses on a lot of the dynamic between Tony and his teammates.**

**I'm home! Well, obviously. First off, thank you for all the lovely reviews, which I will be replying to tomorrow :D and secondly, enjoy!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

**Chapter Four**

Ziva informs him that Abby's cooking goes down better than the delivery pizza, because of the less strong—if somewhat spicy—taste and the distinctly lower melted-cheese content. "A good sign," he returns, and doesn't tell her that at least three of the twenty microwaveable meals are cheese-baked. He has no idea how he's going to keep all the food fresh with the portions she's currently keeping to. He supposes he could eat some (his stomach concurs) and freeze most of it, but he might still have to throw away the rest. Or maybe return them to Abby, but she'd probably accuse him of starving Ziva and then kill him without leaving behind any evidence.

He gets to know from Ziva that the hospital had started slowly introducing solids to her, but that the foods had been mostly bland and therefore acceptable. "It is not like real-world food," she explains, and even though he disagrees—he's had some pretty awesome hospital food—he understands the sort of heartbreak she feels in thinking that she'd never again enjoy a hotdog at a baseball game or Chinese takeout on days off or just … the things in life that people take for granted. He knows she's taken her doctor's whispered conversation much more to heart than she should have, even if she doesn't remotely care to admit to it.

She shows no sign of acknowledgement when he gives in to the urge to take up her free hand. "You'll get to have those things someday," he promises her.

She swallows the last mouthful of food, having taken half an hour to finish what he could've eaten in three bites, and lays the fork carefully back down onto her plate.

"I'm done," she announces, her eyes blank when she looks at him.

xoxo

Gibbs shows up in the early afternoon, a duffle bag (with what Tony hopes doesn't contain more food) in hand and a stern, steely look in eye which gives Tony the hint and sends him home.

The first things Tony does upon getting home are to take a long shower and have his own lunch—or what Ducky would probably call 'afternoon tea'—and he is about to settle down for a nap when his phone rings. He answers and promptly regrets it.

"DiNozzo," Gibbs growls without preamble, "did I dismiss you?"

"Dismiss me?" Tony's face pulls into a frown. "I don't know, Boss, but the last time I checked, you gave me a pretty fierce glare."

"That means 'Get out of the room and go get something to eat,' not 'Go home, take a nap, and not come back until the second time I order you to show up.'"

_First things first._ "Whoa, wait. Since when do you _order _me around when it comes to how I interact with Ziva?"

"Since you're not interacting with her," Gibbs answers without missing a beat. "I'd give you the opportunity to rest if I could be sure you'd go visit her again."

"You're dictating my relationship with her now?"

"Are you saying there's a relationship now?" Tony opens his mouth to hiss an angry retort into the phone, but Gibbs continues before he can say anything. "_Not _Rule 12, DiNozzo. That's not what I'm asking. Since she came home, how many times have you been to visit her?"

"Once," Tony murmurs sullenly.

"Exactly. She needs you, DiNozzo, don't let her down."

"I'm not going to let her down," Tony insists forcefully.

"Yeah? How do you propose not to do that from your own apartment?"

"Great. So you're saying that I can't return to _my own apartment_ now?"

"That's your choice," Gibbs replies, ever the enigma. "But I need to know that you're gonna come back for her."

"Y'know, this is not fair. I'm not your _puppet. _You don't get to choose what I do."

"You've never had a problem with that before."

"Well, maybe I do now!"

"DiNozzo!" There's something in Gibbs' voice that makes Tony freeze before terminating the call. When the older man speaks up again, his voice is quieter and, if possible, more serious. "You really want _Ziva _to be the reason you're disobeying me right now? Especially where Rule 12 _isn't _involved? This is the woman whom you were prepared to give your life for in vengeance. You know how many people I've been willing to do that for? Shannon and Kelly. That's it."

The way Gibbs ends his unusually long speech lets Tony know that there are things to be kept for further discussion in the future, but as always, _first things first,_ and Tony sighs. He sees his boss's point; he really does. He just doesn't know how to get from where his life had been to where his life is now.

"Should I move in?" he asks abruptly, and judging by Gibbs' long pause, the boss hadn't been expecting that.

"Your choice," Gibbs answers softly, if still gruffly. "But don't take advantage of her if you do, although I don't really need to tell you that. She just needs to know that things can go back to normal."

"Boss, I never lived with her—_or 'taken advantage' of her_—before. Moving in wouldn't be 'normal.'"

"I know. But you were once a very big part of her life."

"That changed with Michael Rivkin."

"So, what, you gonna bring Rivkin back to life?" The forcefulness is back. "'Normal' before Rivkin, Tony, and I'm not talking about reinstating her with Mossad. _That's not gonna happen._ But she needs to know that you still care."

"Why do you keep saying that like she doesn't know?" Tony asks with frustration.

"Does she know?" his boss asks bluntly. "You saved her; brought her back. Whoop-dee-doo. Everyone's happy. Except you didn't visit her _once _in the hospital, and she probably thinks you regret bringing her back."

"_How can you say that?_"

"Tell me I'm wrong. Prove to me you've spent enough time with her to know for sure she doesn't think that, because I for one, DiNozzo, had to watch the light die a little in her eyes every morning I had to lie to her and tell her that you'd been while she was asleep."

Tony's breath catches in his throat. "Did that really happen?"

"_Yes. _You still matter to her, Tony. Or maybe you matter to her _again _because you brought her back. I don't know. But we're never gonna find out if you don't talk to her. She needs you, if for no other reason than that you were the _first person _she saw when the bastards pulled that hood off her head."

"Okay." Tony sighs. "Okay, I get it."

"DiNozzo." Gibbs' voice is quiet again. "There's nothing to 'get.' You must accept that sacrifice comes not just in death, but in life also."

"You sound like a fortune cookie, Boss."

"Maybe." Gibbs doesn't even rise to the bait. "I would give my everything to have just one more day with Shannon and Kelly. You have your chance. Take it. You'd be a fool, DiNozzo, to think that you could cope with life without her in it or vice versa. I watched you fall apart. I know what will happen if she walks off and never speaks with you again. So just put aside that damned ego of yours and spend some time with her. It's not hard."

"We don't talk anymore."

"You'll find something to do," the older man answers unsympathetically. "I give you until 1600 to get your ass back here. After that, you're on your own. I'll be dropping in to visit Ziva, but I'm not mollycoddling _you, _too. I've got enough on my hands."

"Got it," Tony answers dully. "Boss?"

"Yeah?"

"… Thank you."

Gibbs makes a noncommittal noise and ends the call, leaving Tony to brood in silence. He finally drops the phone and stands up, his vision darkening temporarily with the rush of blood to his head.

He has no idea what Ziva will say, but he has a lot of packing to do.


	5. Chapter Five

**New chapter! Little grittier, this one. In the bad way.**

**Btw, I do know that I seem to be working the Tony-didn't-show-up-at-the-hospital angle a lot, but that's really not my intention; it's just that the team hasn't really had the chance to confront him, until now. We do eventually see a little of _why _he hadn't shown up, but it goes without saying that Tony's a very private person and doesn't share much, and so ... the whole narration of this story is really more telling than the conversations. Pay attention to it :P y'know, if you wanna know what Tony's thinking. If you don't ... this might be quite boring for you!**

**Kidding.**

**Onwards.**

**Enjoy; please review!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

**Chapter Five**

Gibbs is gone when Tony reaches Ziva's temporary quarters, but in the Boss's place is an intricately designed, beautifully crafted, brightly painted wooden model of a ship that rises to calf height.

"He made me a boat," Ziva says in wonderment, and even though her eyes aren't quite shining yet, Tony knows how much she treasures the model just by the way she holds it. He decides not to tell her that it reminds him of the Damocles. He knows it means something else, something that speaks of a powerful bond, to both Gibbs and Ziva; he knows it speaks of acceptance and forgiveness.

"Listen," he starts, and she hums without taking her eyes off the boat. "I was wondering … y'know, if you'd like me to stay here for a few days, just until you got back on your feet."

"Whatever you like."

His heart plummets into his stomach. He's been hoping she'd ask him to stay, even if she seemingly hasn't been able to muster up anything more than mild enthusiasm when it comes to his presence. "Well, I do have a bag packed here…"

"Okay. Stay, then."

"Do you really want me to?" he asks doubtfully.

"It is the logical option, yes?" She frowns uncomprehendingly. "You have a bag, so you stay."

"My god, Ziva, what did they _do _to you in that camp?" The words are out of his mouth before he can begin to filter them, and she freezes suddenly, her eyes going wide.

"What did you say?" she gasps.

"Nothing," he hastily answers. "I said nothing. Forget it."

"No, _you said something._" She stares at him, eyes horrified, unmoving for an eternity—and then with a quick, sudden motion, breaks off the mast of her beloved ship. The scream that exits her lips as she picks up the boat sends shudders down his spine and bile up his throat, but he steps forward just in time to stop the model from leaving her hands and splintering into a million pieces at their feet. She shoves the boat at his chest without a single second's hesitance, and the last image he sees before the bathroom door slams shut in his face is the way her whole person quivers.

He looks down at the model, the ship's sails limp and somehow no longer as bright as they'd been five minutes before. It breaks his heart that the ship now doesn't seem as symbolic of the sunken Damocles as much as it does her broken spirit.

xoxo

He knocks on the door and tries the lock when she doesn't answer. The door swings open easily, so he calls her name and steps into the bathroom.

She's sitting in the bathtub with her knees drawn up and her head leaning sideways against the wall, her cheeks tear-stained but her eyes empty. "Ziva, I'm so sorry." He thinks it strange that tears spring into his eyes when she seems to have cried herself out, but she just shakes her head slightly. "I didn't mean what I said."

She doesn't answer.

"Please talk to me," he begs.

"I don't know what to say."

"Anything. Yell at me. Curse at me. Or maybe _curse _me and hope I die a painful death. But please talk to me. Don't keep it all inside."

"I am keeping nothing inside."

"Ziv—"

"You expect me to hurt. To need help. Yes? You expect me to have to talk to someone. But I don't. I am keeping nothing inside, because everything inside me has died."

His heart clenches painfully. "Ziva…"

"What?"

"Don't say that. That's not true." He inches closer to her, unsure of how she'll react but unable to bear standing so far away from her.

She doesn't move a limb. "It is true."

"Why do you think that?"

"Because I feel nothing."

"That wasn't 'nothing' you just felt, when you…"

"That was an anomaly." Her eyes meet his, and he sinks to the floor beside the tub. "I don't actually want to die, but I don't really want to live, either," she confesses.

"You don't really want to live?"

"No."

"I think…" He swallows. "Ziva, maybe we need to get you help."

"What for?"

"For … to believe in yourself again."

"Why do I need that?"

"… Maybe so we can find 'normal' again."

"We don't need that. You still have 'normal.' _I _don't have it."

"Don't you want yours back?"

"No." She stretches out her legs and takes her gaze from his. "Let me analyse this for you. Your, and Gibbs', and Abby's, and everyone's lives can go back to the way they were before I went to Somalia. Mine cannot."

"That's not true. And I don't want to go back to a time when you weren't there."

"You survived for months without me."

"I barely did. And I can't…"

"You shall have to," she answers crisply, cutting off the confession he's too chicken to make twice. "I am dragging all of you down. You are wasting your time with me. I cannot be healed."

"I don't _care,_" he says fiercely, combating her distorted rationality with his strong emotion. "And you _can._"

"Perhaps never regaining normal functioning."

"Ziva, what the doctor said—"

"'Were all lies,'" she finishes for him. "That's what you are going to say, to make me feel better. But I don't see the point."

"I need for you to fight."

"Why?"

His bottom lip trembles. "Because I need you back."

"You don't want me. You spent three weeks not wanting me, until Gibbs showed up and forced you to visit me and pack a bag to stay overnight. Then you came, out of duty. I don't care either want to stay, you stay. But I'm telling you that you're wasting your time with me because I will do everything in my power to carry on as you want if you stay, and in the end, I will still be dead inside."

"_You're not dead inside._"

"You don't know that." Her eyes flick towards his before her face goes slack and she leans back heavily against the wall. "I am tired. Goodnight."

He is left to stare at her, caught between hurt and pain and disbelief. She is _wrong; _he wants her more than anything in the world. But it doesn't really matter, because she's falling asleep against a bathroom wall and telling him that she won't fight him, and that leaves a gaping hole in the middle of his heart where the spirited Ziva who drove him crazy had used to reside. He's never thought he'd miss the way she slept with a gun under her pillow. Really, it tears him apart that he doesn't have the faintest idea of what to do with a Ziva who wishes for nothing more than to fall to pieces and to be forgotten with the passing of time.

But he can't let her go, so he stands up and scoops her out of the tub, and steps into the main room to lie down with her on the floor, again bundled up in his embrace. He can try to keep the monsters that come in her sleep away from her for now.

He _has _to attempt that, at least.


	6. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six**

Four hours into Ziva's nap and six games of Tetris later, Tony has figured out just how subtle her nightmares can be. She never really cries or screams or thrashes; never really does anything to alert him as to her state if he's not paying attention. Instead, she just whimpers, quietly and desperately, the close-lipped version of screams that makes the hairs on the back of his neck rise nonetheless.

She never really wakes up either, except the one time that he loses all logical thought and shakes her into consciousness. The look of absolute terror in her eyes when she wakes up makes him much less eager to tell her to return to sleep. But she just curls into a ball and closes her eyes again, and he wonders how someone could want something that hurt so much so badly. If it were him, he'd never sleep again for the rest of his life.

McGee drops by after dinnertime, when Ziva finally seems to have settled into a dreamless sleep. Tony presses a finger to his lips and leads McGee out of the room; standing facing the door so that they'd know if she needed help, they talk.

"How are you?" McGee asks, and Tony pauses because no one's asked him that so far.

"I'm good."

"Are you really?"

"As good as I can be." He gazes broodingly at the door. "D'you know, McGee, that she doesn't care anymore?"

"What do you mean?"

"She doesn't want to live." Tony runs a hand through his hair. "I don't know what to do about that."

"Just be there for her," McGee suggests gently.

"I'm _trying,_" Tony snaps.

"But?"

"But it's tiring."

"I know."

"You know?"

"Tony, we all know. We were all there at the hospital."

"Oh, are you gonna start with how I wasn't at the hospital, too?"

"No," McGee answers firmly. "And I'll get Abby off your case if it bothers you that much. But I'm just saying … yeah, we know. Has to be harder for you, though, 'cause you're here all the time."

"Not as hard for me as it is for her."

"Abby?" McGee asks in confusion.

"Ziva," Tony clarifies. "She just … I don't know. Do you think she wants me here, McGee?"

"Yeah."

"Everyone says so, but not her. I don't think she wants me here. You're all wrong. She wants Gibbs, not me."

McGee screws his eyes shut. "Okay, there's an image I never want to see again."

"What do you mean?"

"She needs you and Gibbs in different ways."

"That ship has long sailed, McGee," Tony answers, and the younger man raises his eyebrows. "Oh, don't give me that look. I mean she doesn't care about me anymore. And even if she did, that doesn't matter. That's not the point. The point is how I can't help her."

"She still needs you."

"Yeah, so people keep saying. But she doesn't need _me;_ she needs _someone._"

"Even if that were true, would you be willing to let someone else take up this job?"

Tony swings his head to look at the younger man. "People would assume so, given the three weeks…"

"Assumptions aren't always true," McGee replies, the hint of a challenge in his voice. "Are they?"

"No," Tony sighs. "No, they're not true, and I would give anything to take away her bad memories. But I can't."

"Stop saying that. You don't know what you can or cannot do until you've done it."

"Spare me the amateur psychology. I probably give her nightmares, being here. I feel like I'm … impeding her death." He breathes out. "I don't want her to die, but I can't help feeling like I'm something extraneous; something she doesn't need. You know what she said to me earlier? That if I stayed, she'd do anything in her power to carry on as I wanted, but that she'd still be dead inside. What am I supposed to say to that? Since when does Ziva do anything just to please anyone? McGee, I'm stopping her death, and I'm feeling guilty about that because she's just so unhappy. This is _messed up._"

"Tony, you couldn't do anything if she really wanted to di—"

"Thank you."

"No. _Listen. _You're her reason to live. You're—"

"Oh, well, that makes me feel so much better, being the bastard who keeps her alive."

"There's no pleasing you, is there?"

"No!" Tony shouts, before he remembers to keep his voice down. "There's no pleasing her!"

"You can't expect her to throw a party just because you're here. She's struggling—"

"_I know, _but you don't see the look in her eyes when Gibbs is here. You don't see how hard she tries to talk to Abby. She doesn't try that with me. She doesn't smile like I've made her whole day. She doesn't _care _that I'm here, McGee."

"Tony, she does car—"

"Stop saying that!" He throws his hands out. "She doesn't. And don't even bother pretending that I'm not a jerk for wanting her to care. What kinda person am I—"

"_Stop that,_" McGee cuts in sharply. "You have been here for _one. Day. _Give her time to get used to you. Boss and Abby have three weeks on you. She took a long time to warm up to them, too. And to me."

"Did she really?"

"Yeah." The younger field agent stares at him quietly. "I'm not gonna lie to you; you're paying for things because you didn't show up. But that doesn't mean she doesn't _want _you to be in her life. There's a reason we've all been yelling at you to stick by her side. We wouldn't put her through that if we thought she really hated you, so…" McGee lifts a shoulder and drops it. "Look, you gotta take care of her, that's all. I know it's hard when she seems like she's not really even acknowledging you, but it pays off, even if it's just in the way she turns her head and smiles at you when you enter the room. There's really _nothing _like it. And even if she doesn't smile at _you _… _you _care about _her. _Are you telling me that you're gonna leave her if she doesn't return to how she used to feel about you? 'Cause I kinda find that hard to believe."

"No." Tony sniffles, hating himself for it. "But I don't wanna impose on her."

"Why don't you ask her what she wants?"

"She just tells me she doesn't care."

McGee sighs. "Did you really ask her?"

"Sort of."

"Do it. You never really know what the answer is going to be unless you talk to her."

"What if she gives me an answer I can't handle?"

"Then at least you have your answer. Assuming it's not the kind of answer that needs immediate medical attention."

Tony rubs the back of a hand over his eyes. "Okay."

"But I don't think she's going to give you that answer, for the record."

"It shouldn't matter, right? I mean, I abandoned her for three weeks."

"You had your reasons." McGee shakes his head. "And I'm not saying that they're good reasons, but it's over. You're here _now. _You just need to ask her about now."

"Right," Tony answers listlessly.

McGee gives him a single nod and a small smile. "Do you think she needs immediate medical attention, Tony? She didn't … she didn't try to hurt herself in the hospital, but…" McGee swallows.

Tony hesitates. "Not … not right now, maybe. I got it. I mean, she's been observed and restrained enough. But she needs help."

"I'll look into it."

"Thanks, Tim."

"Yup."

"Y'know, you're a good man."

"Oh, don't," McGee groans. "You sound like you're trying to flirt with me."

That makes a corner of Tony's lips quirk up for the first time in a day. He chuckles and claps the younger man on the shoulder. "Don't count on it. I got a woman waiting for me back in her apartment."

xoxo

Ziva stirs when he enters her room, blearily opening her brown eyes to look at him in a way that softens his heart. "Hey." He moves forward and shifts to lie on his stomach beside her.

"Hello."

"McGee just left; you want me to call him back?"

She stares ponderingly at the door. "Did he say anything?"

"What do you mean?"

"He always says something nice when he comes to visit."

"Oh. Well, he did try to flirt with me…" Tony quips, and Ziva blinks in confusion. "Never mind. We mostly just talked."

"Oh."

"About you."

"Okay."

"Ziva … do you really want me here?"

Her eyes slide up to his, watching him for a second before darting away. "I cannot say I want you, but I cannot say I don't want you, either."

"Don't care either way, huh?"

"Yes."

He sighs and lowers his head. "Okay."

He doesn't really expect the cold hand she raises to touch his cheek, and so jerks back with a yelp at the sensation. She freezes, hand extended pointlessly, and even though her eyes carry no expression, he feels so stricken that _his _hand wraps around her own before he realizes it.

"Sorry," he says, lightly rubbing her fingers. "I was surprised."

"You are sad," she comments neutrally.

He breathes out, wondering how much he should level with her. "Yeah, I kinda am…. I'm kinda hoping you want me around."

"Why? You did not visit me in the hospital."

"Does that bug you?"

"Yes. Friends should visit friends."

"I know." He bites his lip. "I was just scared."

"Of what?"

"We didn't part very well."

Ziva falls silent again, but for once, she appears to be thinking—as if trying to come up with a reasonable answer for him—and that gratifies him indescribably. "We did not," she agrees. "But I had been hoping we could be friends again. I have a lot of regrets from Somalia that I … cannot bear to think about. One of them is y-you."

She stops abruptly, a harsh breath escaping her lips as she wheezes, her chest heaving with a sudden panic attack. He scrambles up into a sitting position, pulling her up with him and leaning her against the side of the bed frame. "Breathe," he instructs, his stomach rolling with anxiety, and she whimpers pitifully. "Breathe. It's okay. I'm here. It's okay, Ziva. I got you."

She coughs hard and falls weakly against him, the volume of her gasping only increasing to fill the air, and he fights back tears as he presses a kiss to the top of her head and continues whispering his words of reassurance to her.

xoxo

She curls into him the more her breathing calms down, a fact that perplexes him beyond all imagination. He doesn't bother questioning her, though; only strokes her arm and shifts to tuck her head more comfortably into the crook of his neck. "You made it," he whispers against her cheek. "Atta girl. I'm so proud of you."

"That was the first time it happened," she tells him, sounding heartbreakingly close to tears.

"It's okay. It was just a panic attack."

She takes a shuddering breath. "Am I going crazy?"

"No. These things happen, Ziva. You've been through a lot."

"I don't want to suffer anymore."

"I know. I know, but you'll be okay soon. I promise."

It is an empty promise, something that he and she are both aware of. He can't ever predict that she'll be alright, but he doesn't have anything else to reassure her of. Watching her swing between fear and indifference and grief and anger has been the singularly most _haunting _experience he's ever had, and yet he chokes up at the thought that she might not want to fight any longer, because he simply can't imagine life without her.

He's _lived _life without her.

He hadn't really survived it, because it's safe to say that she's not the only one who's lost a part of herself.

The pure selfishness gives him a bitter taste in his mouth, but he swallows back his self-hate as he strokes her arm again. "Hey. You're gonna make it, y'know. You're strong."

She presses her face into his skin, and his stomach turns at how easily she buys into his cheap insincerity. "I'm not strong anymore."

"Yes, you are," he insists, relieved that he doesn't have to fake the conviction this time. "You're the strongest woman I know."

"Still? After everything?"

"Yeah, still. Always will be. You're my heroine."

She doesn't reply to that, but changes the topic. "Can I eat now?"

"If you want to. I'll go get some food for you." She nods against his shoulder. "But you've to eat more. Remember our deal?"

"It wasn't a deal. You thought I had to eat more."

He clears his throat uncomfortably. "I guess I shoulda asked you."

"You would not have gotten anywhere. I do not care to eat more."

The air is still for a moment. "Ziva…" he whispers contemplatively. "Can I … do I get to take care of you?"

The seconds tick by as she takes her time in pondering her answer, until he feels like he might faint from the breath he's holding. But finally, in an impossibly soft voice, she says, "Yes. You do."

The fact that he's holding her is the only thing that's stopping him from punching the air in victory.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Hello, everyone! I'm just updating here because ... well, I've gotten the feedback for the first draft of my thesis back (got it back last week, actually, but have you seen this well-worn card denoting my exclusive membership to the Procrastination Club?), and I will be working on it from now until the 28th (although I may update before then). I will not be updating from the 30th of August to the 15th of September at _least, _btw, because I will be travelling around continental Europe and will not have my laptop with me. But rest assured, I will not abandon this story! I'm about 12 chapters ahead, anyway.**

**Enjoy!**

**-_Soph_**

**P.S. I went to Leeds to watch the Phantom of the Opera today. I think it's safe to say that I may just have discovered why CdP had wanted (or still wants?) to be on Broadway :P**

* * *

**Chapter Seven**

Time both crawls and flies by as the week passes. Faces come and go, with Abby appearing every morning and Gibbs appearing almost every lunch time; McGee shows up after dinner, and Ziva makes a reasonable effort to be awake and presentable whenever the Probie drops by. Tony feels a twinge of jealousy at that.

It's not that he begrudges Ziva the company or thinks that the younger male field agent is trying to usurp his position—far from it. He just wishes Ziva would smile at him, too, even if he doesn't have "nice things" to say. He's trying; he really is. He dutifully increases her food intake and successfully gets her to pay attention to her hygiene, even if she still sleeps on the floor. She follows him around everywhere like a lost puppy, save for when he needs to take a shower or go to the toilet (and those, after numerous assurances that he'll return quickly), yet never really looks at him or talks to him unless he addresses her directly. _But, _despite everything, her breathing still grows impossibly shallow and her eyes still grow impossibly wild and unfocused whenever he makes a single move towards the front door, as if the thought of his leaving forever and never looking back haunts her days. He can't figure it out.

The broken boat model is her constant companion in the mornings. When neither of them is occupied, she sits on the floor, trying to fix it with her bare hands. She never uses any glue and, as she tells him once, knows rationally that the model can't be made whole with thin air, but doing it seems to soothe her and give her something to aim for. After a week, seeing her do that no longer disturbs him, so he leaves her be and only sides with her when Gibbs offers to make her a new one and she steadfastly refuses.

The board game _Scrabble _remains the only thing she shows any remote interest in besides the boat, and as much as that fact is bewildering, Tony knows enough not to question it. He just drags the board out as often as he can, trying to engage her, trying to bring the spark of life back into her eyes; instead, he is often haunted with the words 'SALEEM,' 'ULMAN,' or 'TORTURE.' It scares him because he never really knows if she's trying to deal with her memories or attempting to further dwell in them. It has to be impossible that her supposedly chosen-at-random tiles so coincidentally fit.

On the second Monday that he spends there, the perfect little messed-up routine that he's established is destroyed. Gibbs pulls him aside before leaving from a visit and says, "Your vacation time ended yesterday."

Tony stares at his boss, stunned into stillness because he had _completely forgotten _that such a thing as work still existed. Gibbs merely continues with, "I'm giving you two more weeks, but after that, Vance is gonna ask questions and I'll need you to return. You should talk to Ziva about this. She needs to know that you can't spend all your time around her."

And then the silver-haired man is gone, and Tony realizes that he'd rather have Ziva shadow him forever than have himself made to part with her.

xoxo

She's sitting on the edge of the bed with her lips pursed and her hands busy with trying to reattach the mast of the ship when he turns to her. He breathes out, thinking that one day, he might encourage her to actively find ways to fix the boat; maybe even make another one. For now, though, he has more important things to attend to.

"Ziva," he calls, and she looks up and straight through him. He moves forward and kneels in front of her. "I uhm … Gibbs just told me that … the time-off I took ends in two weeks."

She peers at him. "Oh," she answers softly with an easiness that confuses him to no end.

"I'm sorry." He doesn't even know why he's apologizing, but he does it anyway.

"You need to work, yes?"

"Yeah. But I'll be here in the evenings and on weekends."

"Are you moving back to your apartment?" she asks, and he blinks because that might just have been about the most intelligent sentence she's formed all week.

"Not if you don't want me to."

"You should not have to make your whole life revolve around me."

That stings somewhat, even though he knows she hadn't meant it as a dismissal at all. "Don't you want me here?" he teases, but the joke seems to sail right over her head.

"You have to go to work."

"I know, but I'll be returning to you in the evenings."

She watches him. _Really _watches him, more intently and for longer than she's done in many days, and it suddenly hits him that she might already be planning to give up if there is not a single person by her side at the end of the day. "Do you want to return to me?"

He swallows the lump in his throat and reaches out to hold her hand. "Yeah, I do." _Not just to keep you alive._

She stares at their hands. "Okay."

And therein lies the extent of her reaching out. "What does 'Okay' mean?" he pushes.

"I hope you return."

She looks at him in perplexity when he lifts her hand to kiss it, hot tears burning the back of his eyelids.

xoxo

That night, he learns that she can apparently still put up a fight if she wants to.

He suggests that she sleep on the bed, and she drops herself to the floor, arms crossed and expression mulish. "I don't want to," she says.

"C'mon, it can't be that bad. I've been putting you to bed after you fall asleep these past few days, anyway."

"Yes, but I'm already asleep then."

"So you won't even try to _fall _asleep in a bed? Like normal people?"

"I'm not normal!" she snaps.

"I think we were aiming for integrating you into regular life." He pulls back the covers. "C'mon. I'll stay here with you."

"You always stay here with me. I still can't sleep in a bed."

"Well, I'm not leaving you on the floor when I go to work, so just get in already!"

She freezes, the stubborn light in her eyes fading out. _Orders, _his mind hisses at him as her hand flutters nervously over a draping corner of the bedspread. _She can't deal with orders well anymore, you _idiot._ When are you going to get that through your thick head?_

He sighs and sits down opposite her. "Ziva, I don't wanna leave you on the floor when I go to work."

She rubs a bit of the bedspread between her thumb and index finger. "I can take care of myself."

"I know you can, but … it doesn't feel good to me, leaving you on the floor."

"I'm not here to soothe your ego," she answers defiantly, and he is so taken aback by it that he almost forgets his next sentence.

"Well, can't you do it just to humour me?"

"No." Her eyes are hard and angry, cutting so sharply into his heart that his spirit falls.

"Okay," he replies. "Okay, I guess I can't make you."

"No, you _can't._"

Feeling discouraged and strangely humiliated, he gets up to throw away the leftovers from dinner and clean up. She tails him all the way to the kitchen sink.

xoxo

In many ways, it's as if she's a frightened child. Quiet and withdrawn, she yet never misses the opportunity to follow him around or demonstrate her stubborn will.

That night, he is halfway through sleepily wondering if he should've dealt with the situation differently when his heart wrenches with the ridiculousness of it all, from the way he indulges her whims to the change in his manner of speech towards her. Ziva's an _adult, _and a formerly reserved one at that. Things shouldn't be this way, _ever._

But yet … he doesn't know what other way things could be. Taking up a harsh tone with her is certainly out of the question, and a soft tone seems to draw her out of her seemingly empty shell more than any other voice does. He can't exactly tie her to a chair as he goes about with daily life, either. He can't leave her behind any more than she can let him out of her sight.

He is trapped between being a good thing and being a bad thing for her. Not for the first time in a week, he wonders if he's doing anything right. The way her appetite seems to be getting marginally better might point to success on at least one front, but _hey, _he's an Italian. If he were to be good at anything, it'd be at getting someone to eat more.

With a sigh, he adjusts his arms around her and struggles up and into bed. She may be able to sleep for the entire night on the floor, but his back whines at the strain of it all, and he can't sleep well without the soft mattress beneath him and the assurance of the still-alive woman beside him.

Sometimes he wonders if he hasn't irrevocably damaged her.

But then, right now, she's humming in her sleep and shifting her hand up to rest it possessively—or so he pretends—on the side of his neck, and he remembers that he hadn't heard her frightened whimpering the night before, or in the past hour that she's been asleep in his arms. His heart soars to new heights at that.

Maybe … maybe there's still hope for all of them?


	8. Chapter Eight

**Chapter Eight**

A tingling sensation wakes him up the next morning, and he opens his eyes to see Ziva stroking a single bit of his chest over and over. For a moment, he feels completely disoriented and thrown off, but then she looks up; when he sees the penitence and overwhelming sadness on her face, he understands what she's apologizing for even if she can't put words into it.

So, he pulls her closer and kisses her hair. "It's okay," he murmurs sleepily, "we'll try again tonight."

She nuzzles her face into the dip of his neck and curls her fist around a bit of his shirt, settling down once more.

xoxo

Ducky shows up in the afternoon for his third visit since she had been released from the hospital. The medical examiner asks to talk to her privately, as usual, and simply sits in a corner of the living room with her as Tony flits about trying to tidy up.

If he's to be honest with himself, there's not much to do in the small place. Ziva's apartment—or temporary home, _whatever_—opens out into a paved courtyard that has housing on three sides. A single, quite pathetic-looking tree in the tiny unpaved square in the middle of the courtyard, along with a few flowering potted plants in front of neighbours' homes, are about the most interesting things to look at. Ziva's apartment itself is small, with a living-room-cum-bedroom, a tiny kitchen, and an even tinier bathroom. With almost all of his energy put into cleaning—Ziva doesn't exactly do anything with him, after all—the house practically sparkles, but it's still … sparse. Empty. Ziva has a bookcase without books, but not a couch or a TV; and a small dining table with one chair, and a shower that works only half the time. It's in moments like these, when he's looking around trying to see what he can do to make it better, that his very soul cries.

It's not as if the team hasn't tried to make the place brighter. Gibbs had shown up one day and tried for four hours to fix the shower, but to no avail. Abby still brings all sorts of interesting knick-knacks to fill the bookcase with because Ziva doesn't _read _anymore, even though McGee had reserved a corner of the case for any and all reading material that he wished to share with the Israeli. Palmer had delivered a whole stack of board games once, from which _Scrabble _had emerged the winner. The next day, he'd turned up with an afghan blanket which he said he'd knitted himself, much to Tony's amazement. Ducky hangs paintings from his mother's mansion on the walls. They seem out of place in the small, dull apartment, but Tony is infinitely grateful for them.

He gets to hear from Abby that they are all still looking for another place for Ziva, but that circumstances are hard in the current economic climate. None of them really wish for her to rent, wary that an apartment that isn't her own might bring on another host of problems, but buying seems almost out of the question when she hasn't a truck-load of cash on her or any local savings accounts that they deem safe to ask her about. Or any chance of having a good credit score, for that matter. He knows that Ducky and McGee, made semi-wealthy from inheritance and fame respectively, have considered pooling their money, but all the same—have any of them the right to violate the dignity of a woman who'd lost all meaning in life by getting her an apartment she hasn't herself bought?

And then there's the simple problem of her refusing to actually set foot outside her apartment. Tony's single attempt had resulted in another panic attack along with a two-hour crying session, and he hadn't dared to try again since. They would be hard-pressed to get her to move if she daren't even step out for some fresh air.

He sighs and thinks about how he has managed to mess up her life so badly. Gibbs has given her a boat model which she cherishes immensely; Palmer, a game of _Scrabble _which she focuses on with all the intensity of a professional player. Ducky gets her to talk like no one else can. Abby feeds her, and McGee spends all of his nights searching through therapist listings and real estate listings. Tony himself, on the other hand … only manages to make her cry and panic.

Tony is so busy beating himself up that he doesn't notice Ducky get up and move to stand in front of him until the older man's face appears before his eyes and makes him jump. "Ducky," he greets carefully.

"Anthony," the older man returns. "You have been standing there, stock-still, for the past five minutes."

Tony shrugs in a show of nonchalance. "Well, I've nothing else to do."

Ducky peers at him. "Perhaps we should talk."

The incline of Ducky's head suggests that Tony rein in his jokes, so Tony just scowls. "Fine."

"Why don't you go tell Ziva that we'll be right back?"

Tony stalks over to Ziva, feeling so disgruntled that surprise actually seems to flash through her eyes. "Hey, I gotta go outside to talk to Ducky for a while." The surprise is quickly replaced with a hint of fear that pulls at his heart, so he kneels, pulling her gently to him and kissing her cheek. "Don't worry, I'll be right back."

She nods, hesitantly lifting her hand to put it around his waist and tightening her grip for a split second. "Okay," she whispers. His heart soars once more.

That's the first time she's done that, short and clumsy as the moment is.

He brushes her cheek lightly and straightens up, giving her a smile before he leaves the door after the medical examiner.

"So?" Tony asks brusquely as soon as Ducky turns to him, but the older man doesn't seem the least bit perturbed by his harshness.

"What's bothering you, my dear boy?"

"The fact that you took me away from Ziva."

Ducky studies him. "You know, caregivers are often burdened with a lot of stress."

Tony splutters. "What are you saying?"

"You seem to have a lot on your mind, Anthony."

"Yeah, of course I do. Like what I should let Ziva eat next or how I'm gonna get her to sleep on the bed, which she _still _doesn't do, by the way. What's your point?"

"Do you want to talk about it?"

The simple question makes Tony stop with a 'No' halfway to his mouth. He really does want to talk about it. The thought has been lying heavy in his heart for the past week; maybe even the past month, ever since he brought her back.

"Have I broken her, Ducky?" he blurts out, suddenly trembling with grief.

"No." Ducky shakes his head. "She is simply trying to cope with what happened to her."

"I thought she was better than this." The words fall out in a rush, Tony's tongue tripping over itself. "I thought she was fi—she was looking at me and all, in Somalia. She was talking to me. And now, it's like…" He stops, choking on his own breath as he runs a hand through his hair. "I broke her."

"You did not," Ducky says firmly. "Ziva is getting better; I see it. You have managed to get her to reach out like no one else has been able to."

"That's not true," Tony answers incredulously. "I get her to eat, but she won't fall asleep without me and she follows me around and … don't get me wrong, Ducky, I love her. But I'm … I'm damaging her. She's not…" He brushes a hand over his cheek. "I damaged her, because I didn't go to visit her in the hospital."

"That, my boy, suggests an influence which I do not think you have over her."

He snorts humourlessly. "I don't know what to say. She wasn't like this when she entered the hospital."

Ducky sighs heavily. "Our dear Ziva is merely suffering from a delayed stress reaction. In Somalia, where she was still in danger, she shut down in order to cope. Fortunately, that allowed her to function normally—or, at least, in what might be seen as a 'normal' manner. Unfortunately, now that she is safe, everything that happened to her is catching up to her." He eyes Tony. "It will be a while before she seems 'normal' again, I'm afraid. But, with the right intervention, she can still learn to live life to the fullest."

Tony draws in a deep breath. "It's not permanent?"

"Certainly not. Give her a proper chance, and she will flourish before your eyes."

"I just find that so hard to believe."

"Why so?"

"She just…" Tony waves his hand around, unable to find the words to describe her current state.

"And yet, as you have told me, she is eating more. She needs you by her side in order to fall asleep, but she no longer has to be sedated. Small victories, Anthony."

"I'm in love with her," Tony confesses brokenly. If Ducky's surprised by the abrupt change in topic, he doesn't show it.

"Please do correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought you realized that quite a while ago."

"I did. But this is wrong. She's … like a child now; she doesn't need me to … love her this way."

"Would the way in which you love her have any effect on the quality of your caregiving?"

"No, but … why can't I be a Gibbs or a McGee to her?"

"Why do you want to be?"

"Because it makes more sense. They're better at this." He shudders. "I keep pinning my hopes on … getting to hold her or make her better … even picturing a future with her. And it's not right. It's selfish. I'm being selfish."

"Anthony, we all expect things from her," Ducky replies gently. "Perhaps not rightly so, but it is not selfish. It is human. And what matters is not whether we have these expectations, but how we handle it, should things not turn out the way we want them to. I would not go so far as to give you hope for a future together when she has not indicated that yet, but there is nothing wrong with loving her."

"It feels like there is. I want … I want her, so bad. And not just physically."

"Yet you have been a perfect gentleman towards her, physically or otherwise."

"_Well, _I'm not gonna set out to hurt her just for I still … kiss her cheek and stuff."

"As does Jethro."

Tony frowns. "The intent is different."

"The intent is the same—it is an expression of care. Perhaps a different kind of care, but nonetheless, I do not believe that you would push her towards where she is not prepared to go. If she were to tell you that she disliked the kisses, would you continue?"

"No, 'course not."

"And there you have your answer."

Tony breathes out shakily, shifting on his feet. "You don't think it's wrong that I'm in love with her?"

"I think she needs a few more people in this world who truly care about her. You are not a bad candidate for that, Anthony."

"I fail her. A lot."

"You are also helping her a lot. Ziva smiles when you kiss her cheek; did you know that?"

Tony blinks distractedly. "No." He genuinely doesn't.

"It's not up to me to offer an interpretation as to the reason she smiles," Ducky replies, "but she certainly seems far from disliking it. You're not hurting her, Anthony. Take heart in that, at least."

Tony chews on his bottom lip and nods. "I just want to help her. Not harm her."

"I know, my boy. You do help her."


	9. Chapter Nine

**Alright, I'm off to Continental Europe in about ten hours! So this is the last chapter that I'll post in about 2 1/2 weeks. I hope you enjoy it; I will be back soon!**

**There are a few (actually, many) reviews that I haven't replied to, but as I'm a bit short of time, I will only be able to reply to a few of them before I've to go and stow my computer in storage. I will reply to them when I come back, I promise.**

**And yes, my dissertation is done :P**

**Enjoy!**

**-_Soph_**

**P.S. Please forgive any editing mistakes; I'm usually short of time when it comes to publishing chapters for this fic, so I can't read them over three times like I ... tell myself that I'm supposed to do, and things just get really messed up lol. So if you do spot any errors in this fic, please erm, try not to mind them?**

* * *

**Chapter Nine**

Ducky is right, Tony finds. Ziva _does _smile when he kisses her, even though much more subtly than Ducky's words had initially led him to believe. But in the tiniest moment before the light in her eyes fades away, her lips curl upwards.

He can't believe he'd missed her first smile to him—_all _her smiles to him—in the first place, but it's too late for that now. So he just asks her instead with his heart in his mouth if she minds the kisses. She hesitates, an analytical look slipping over her face as if she's trying to decide where he's going with this, but finally shakes her head, and inwardly, he does a victory dance.

She never asks him why he'd wanted to know, even though he suspects she wonders. He never tells, even though he thinks that someday, he is going to need to have a more serious conversation with her.

It takes them seven nights to get her to fall asleep in bed alone.

On the night of the day that she'd woken up penitent for her cutting words, she climbs into bed on her own, promptly remaining in a half-sitting position and staring at the wall for an hour until he sighs and climbs into bed with her. It takes her another two hours to get tired enough to simply pass out.

He gets right into bed with her on the second night. She stays awake again, but this time, she talks. Talks about how, ironically, the bed is what reminds her of Saleem and the terrorist camp because the soft mattress and smooth sheets bring to her intense discomfort, and intense discomfort is what she associates with those three months. Talks about how she'd managed to fall right back to sleep the previous morning, after he'd reassured her, and how it gives her hope that she can do this after all. Talks about how she's sorry to be an inconvenience to him—and that's really the thing which chokes him up and leaves him clinging to her in a shuddering mess of tears until they both fall asleep from exhaustion.

On the third night, she discovers that lying completely on top of him lets her sleep. Yet it's not the wisest move, certainly, and he spends a long time that night trying to think about anything but her body on his. When her breathing evens out, he rolls her off to his side. Needless to say, though, he sleeps badly, and her nightmares make a return even though she doesn't seem to remember them the next morning.

_She can do this,_ she tells him on the fourth night. She cowers in bed alone with her eyes shut tight, trembling from the memories until he almost wants to physically remove her. He doesn't because she tells him that she can do it and that she's determined to be strong; and _God help him, _but even though she whimpers in terror occasionally, he has _never _been prouder of her than in that moment. Eventually, she gives in and asks for his presence by her side. He doesn't forget to tell her as he wraps his arms around her about how incredible he thinks she is.

The fifth night is a repeat of the fourth, albeit with (thankfully) less pain and a shorter duration. She curls into him when he tells her the same thing he had the previous night, and his heart skips a beat which he thinks he might never recover because _he sees her smile. _A sparkling, genuine, intentional smile, directed towards him with all the gratefulness of a lifted spirit. He is so happy that night that he almost doesn't manage to fall asleep.

She somehow manages to drop off to asleep alone on the sixth night, albeit only after three hours. He keeps vigil over her until he is sure that her nightmares won't return, and then curls up on the floor and attempts to fall asleep there. _It's funny, _he thinks, that her success means his sacrifice. Not that he could ever begrudge her the bed—it hadn't been rightfully his in the first place. And the timid laughter that tumbles out of her mouth the next morning when his back gives a loud crack makes everything worth it.

They suffer from a setback on the seventh day when his attempts to get her to step outside the house trigger another panic attack. She remains in an unpredictable whirlwind of emotions for the rest of the day. When she finally falls into bed, she is so tired out that she is asleep almost before her head hits the pillow. He almost cries that night, but through their pain comes the discovery that if she is tired enough, she will fall asleep naturally.

And so, he makes it his mission from then on to make her day as busy as possible. One morning consists of dancing to no music; even though she protests vehemently and doesn't really participate at all, she does occasionally laugh in a way that he hopes to commit to memory forever. Another morning, he pulls out all of McGee's books and cajoles her into reading them. It surprises him that she reads aloud for hours, but he lets her. Her reading is dead compared to how animated she had been before. He tousles her hair and compliments her on a job well done all the same. She smiles faintly, but he catches a glimpse of sadness in her eyes.

He gets Palmer to buy glue, Abby to bring them paint materials, and Gibbs to bring them woodworking materials. For the next three-and-a-half days, Tony and Ziva attempt to make a model; the flimsy piece is shoddy at best even with Gibbs' advice, but _extremely _well-painted (all Ziva's contribution) and so earns its spot on the bookshelf—right next to the now-fixed and proudly displayed original.

On the last Sunday before he returns to work, he gets her to attempt the biggest task so far—to water the tree in the courtyard.

xoxo

"C'mon," he encourages from the front door, and she moves forward with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face.

"I don't want to go out."

"I know you don't want to," he answers, plunking the watering can into her hands while still keeping a grip on it to make sure she doesn't drop it on purpose. "But you want to be able to go out eventually, don't you?"

"Not right now."

"Gotta start somewhere."

She glances at the outside world over his shoulder, and her breathing immediately shallows. "What if I panic again?"

"Then we start all over," he answers pragmatically even though that possibility clenches at his heart. "Ziva, we gotta do this."

"Why?"

"Because I want you to see how beautiful 'out there' is."

"I've seen it. It's not beautiful."

His lips twitch with amusement. "You know, I don't know who you're trying to fool always keeping to yourself like that, because you sure put up one hell of a fight if you want to."

She frowns at him. "It's not funny."

"I know." He sobers and raises one hand to her cheek. "Ziva, I got you, remember?"

She shakes her head stiffly. "You can't save me from my panic attacks."

"No, but I can stay by your side if they happen."

"It's not enough," she admits sadly.

He rubs her cheekbone with his thumb, his heart heavy. "Maybe not, but I can't do the rest for you."

"I have to do it myself."

"Yeah. And I'll be so proud of you when you do," he replies. She lifts her head and stares desperately through him, seemingly searching for her ever-elusive courage, and a lump forms in his throat. He blinks rapidly and tugs on her hand. "C'mon."

With a frightened whimper, she clumsily takes the first step out.

"Good. That's good," he tells her, squeezing her hand as she sets her other foot down beside her first. "See? You're out already."

He wishes that that would've encouraged her, but instead, her breathing starts to grow ragged.

"Hey, it's cool," he says, pulling her the slightest bit closer. "Nothing's gonna hurt you. I'm right here."

She sucks in a breath. "I can't do … this."

"Yes, you can."

"N-… n-no. Take me back, Tony."

"I would, but then we'd have to start all over." That makes an odd cry leave her throat, and he almost caves when her eyes screw shut and a single tear rolls down her cheek. Instead, he draws her into his arms and kisses her hair, feeling close to tears himself. "Tell you what; just focus on me."

She nods, clinging onto the watering can for dear life.

"So we've done this like, a million times. It's nothing new; nothing scary. But I'm just gonna walk you over, okay?"

"T-to the tree?"

"Yeah. But it's just me. It's nothing new."

She shakes her head. "_No,_" she chokes out.

"'No,' what?"

"'M scared."

"I'm right here," he assures her. "See, here's my left hand holding yours, and I've got my right hand around you. _You can feel that. _Focus on it."

She sucks in another harsh breath, nodding.

"Okay, I'm gonna move now," he continues, and she nods again. He shifts a foot, and her breathing gets impossibly quick. "Breathe," he whispers, squeezing her hand again as he takes another step. "Hey, look at that—paved courtyard. Y'know, you'd think they'd plant some grass in here or something. That'd be so much nicer to walk on. Plus, _green. Everybody _loves green. Just like Everybody Loves Raymond."

He hasn't, for the life of him, the faintest idea of what he's babbling on about, but it seems to distract her somewhat. Following his lead and shifting her feet ahead bit by bit, she chokes on her breath and continues to sob, and yet doesn't have a panic attack. His heart thumps with anticipation as they get closer to the tree. Closer to the tree and further from the imagined safety of the house; this could go either way, he knows, and he _prays _that that they will make it to the tree and she will see how successful she's been. Her breathing speeds up again as they approach the tree, but she stays focused until he parks her under the shade and tightens his hold around her slightly.

"Well done," he whispers softly into her ear. "Look, we got here."

"You're humouring me," she replies, the watering can trembling dangerously.

"No. I'm _really _proud of you."

"I'm still scared."

"That's okay. You made it here, anyway," he answers, and a tiny smile graces her features.

"Do I…"

"Do you what?"

"Water the tree."

"Yeah." He loosens his grip on her, waiting for her to lift the watering can, but she continues to stand shaking. "I'm not doing this for you, Ziva. C'mon, lift the can."

She makes a noise of protest, but lifts the can anyway, tilting it so that water sprinkles over the tree roots. It isn't long before her hands start to shake too much to do any productive watering, so he lowers the can and gently holds her close once more.

"Well done," he praises.

"You keep saying that."

"Yeah, but I mean it." She doesn't reply to him. "Ready to go back?"

She inhales sharply. "Do we have to?"

"Yeah, we kinda do. Sleeping under a tree is bad for my back."

A choked laugh escapes her, and she closes her eyes and nods once more. "I can try."

"Okay." Turning her around, he starts the process of shifting her back into the apartment.

They take no less than fifteen minutes to do what is probably a ten-step journey, and the entire way, he silently wonders if he's even helping her at all. Seeing her cry is hard; seeing the tiny, terrified movements she makes is worse. But later that night, as she succumbs to sleep and he treats himself to the indulgence of watching peace and young innocence cross her features, he is filled with the conviction of her strength to heal.

Because if he could use only one word to describe her, 'strong' would be the only one he'd need.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Sooo, guess what :D**

**I'm home! Just got home (like, _home _home, not just into Malaysia) approximately five hours ago. Hmm. Anyway. I had fun :D**

**And here's a new chapter! Before we get into it, some shoutouts:**

**To _Cat, _who reviewed Chapter 8; thank you so much for saying it's to character and amazing! I actually felt quite ... stunned, when I received your review, haha, and I really appreciate your kind compliments.**

**And to _ncis-1001, _I did enjoy my trip, so thank you :) and thank you so much for all the reviews you've been sending me!**

**And to all my guest reviewers, of course :D a name you may not have left behind, but the sentiment is well-appreciated nonetheless :P**

**Enjoy, everyone!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

**Chapter Ten**

Her breathing grows shallow all of a sudden as he's knotting his tie for work, and he flies to her side.

"I'm coming back, Ziva," he says, almost imploring in his attempt to get her to _Stop. Panicking. _She simply nods, a hand over her chest."You don't have to be scared."

"I'm … _trying _… not to be," she rasps out.

He is overcome by the sudden urge to shake her and tell her to try harder, but he sees the frustration in her face and realizes that she doesn't like, want, or understand this anxiety any more than he does. So he kisses her forehead and whispers earnestly against her skin. "I'll be back as soon as I can, I promise."

"You can't promise that."

He leans back and watches her even though she avoids his gaze. "Yeah, I can. And I'm gonna _keep _that."

She breathes hard. "Go," she says with sudden firmness, the tenseness in her figure belying the resolution in her voice. "Go, now."

"Do I get a hug?"

That makes her head shoot up to look at him like he's insane, an action that pleases him ridiculously because she often still looks right through him rather than right at him. She leans forward breathlessly, looping her arms around his torso in something that is more the semblance of a hug than an actual hug; he reciprocates by pulling her tight against him and making her gasp.

"I love you. I gotta go; I'll be home soon."

Dropping one last kiss to the top of her head, he grabs his backpack and swings it over his shoulder. It isn't before he steps out the door, half-worried that Gibbs might actually headslap his brain out of his skull for being late for work on his first day back, that Tony realizes what he's unintentionally said to Ziva.

And how, judging by the hitch in her breath and the slightly dazed way in which she'd watched him leave, she's heard him.

xoxo

He spends the morning at work in distraction.

Gibbs takes one look at Tony and rolls his eyes, undoubtedly convinced that Tony is homesick. That, or lovesick.

Which, unfortunately, wouldn't be _entirely _untrue.

Tony doesn't know what bothers him more—the acknowledgement of his own feelings to a third party (or, he suspects, an entire host of third parties), his approaching Conversation with Gibbs, or his very real, very persistent wish to have a life with Ziva to which he has absolutely no right.

Certainly, the third one hurts him the most. Despite Ducky's words, he is not wholly convinced that he's not being selfish by wishing that from her; every time he pictures a world where she's capable of loving him back and spending the rest of her life by his side, his stomach turns with disgust and derision at himself because _how dare he take such liberties? _Her reliance on him is lopsided and almost trusting in its nature, despite the fact that she never addresses it, and he could never take advantage of her trust by imposing his will on her. Yet, while he has never tried and would never try to purposefully harm her, it gives him a guilty pang in his heart to know that every hug, every kiss on her cheek, every meal he feeds her is not motivated by purely selfless reasons. He's no saint, but maybe that's where he has erred.

She is very strong—he believes that. She will eventually heal—he is also convinced of that. But even if she finally moves on to marry and settle down, it will not be with him; she is not his, and has never been his, and his position in her life is just as a temporary helper who will slowly have to let her go. His heart wrenches at the thought that Ziva might one day decide to cut him out of her life, but then he chastises himself for these feelings, because he's known all along that he is meant to be there only to help her recover. He has always been meant to have to disengage from her once she's able to stand on her own two feet, because he has _ruined _her life impossibly, and he has to _fix what he's destroyed _before he frees her up to a future that will undoubtedly be _much _brighter without him. The irony that the hope for her bright future sends his heart soaring only to tear him apart when he realizes the aloneness that he will have to live with for the rest of his life fills his days, sending him teetering to a point near craziness.

A well-placed headslap jolts him out of his thoughts, and he looks up to see Gibbs' icy blue eyes glaring at him. The older man tilts his head at the elevator. "C'mon."

"Do we have a case?" Tony asks, hoping that Gibbs had said 'Grab your gear' and he has somehow not heard it. He has a feeling that the Rule 12 conversation is impending.

"Nope," the older man simply answers. Tony sighs and gets up, ignoring McGee's peering eyes and following Gibbs into the claustrophobia-inducing box. The boss has hardly pulled the brakes before Tony turns to him, eager to get everything out in the open.

"Look, I know what you're going to say."

"No, you don't."

"You're going to say Rule 12 and whatever," Tony continues, ignoring his boss, "and I'm here to let you know that it's not a big deal. Ziv—"

"Shut up, DiNozzo." Tony falls silent, and Gibbs regards him with an intensity that sends chills down his back. And then, his boss sighs. "Tony, you're not being focused."

"I'm trying."

"I know. Anything on your mind?"

Tony shifts on his feet. "Uhm … nothing you wanna know about."

"Anything I _don't _wanna know about?"

"If you don't wanna know about it, why d'you ask?" He winces at the stinging on his head that follows.

"Because I'm concerned."

Tony raises his eyebrows. "'Concerned'?"

"Yeah, DiNozzo. It's an emotion. Ever heard of it?"

Tony opens and shuts his mouth. And then says, "Boss, you really, _really _don't wanna know about this."

Gibbs sighs again. "This is about Rule 12."

"Boss, I told you, it's not a big dea—"

"I never said it was a big deal."

"Then why are you asking?"

"Because it's affecting your ability to do your work. What happened?"

"Nothing happened. I just … may have said something to her that I shouldn't have."

"You tell her you love her?" Tony gapes at his boss, and Gibbs clucks his tongue impatiently. "C'mon, DiNozzo. You can't tell me you have no idea how transparent you are."

"It's not exactly something amusing, Boss."

"Never said it was." Gibbs studies him. "Well, what are you gonna do?"

"I don't know."

"You better figure something out, because you can't go back to her looking like that."

"I'm not intending to." Tony clears his throat. "Boss … why'd you tell me to go to her in the first place?"

"'Cause she needed you," his boss answers slowly, watching him closely.

"It could've been you who stayed with her. She needs you, too. It could've been McGee."

"Yeah, but we were already there for her."

"So, it was purely to add one more person in her life?"

"If it were that, Tony, I would have gotten Tom the Janitor to stay with her."

Tony rubs his hand over his face. "I'm not the best guy out there for her."

"Neither am I or McGee."

"Yeah, but at least you two wouldn't…" Tony flaps his hand around, trying to find the right words to use. "Say stuff to her."

"Tony, you told her you love her. Big deal."

Tony groans. "Okay, firstly, it's _very, very _creepy that you're not trying to kill me right now. Secondly … I shouldn't have said it to her."

"I'll kill you later. And, can't take it back."

"I should."

"Tony, she's been through hell," Gibbs snaps. "But she's not emotionally stunted. By taking it back, you're insulting her dignity _and _her ability to cope with something like this."

"Well, what if she can't cope?"

"You leave it to her to decide that. Besides, she can't cope, she'll come to me and I'll headslap the _hell _outta ya."

"I don't want to…" Tony hesitates. "Set her recovery back."

"What makes you think it will?" Gibbs challenges. "Been through Somalia, can't cope with love all of a sudden?"

"I don't think she could cope with it in the first place," Tony snarls, only to regret it when he sees a flash of annoyance in Gibbs' eyes."

"You _ever _told her you love her?"

"No."

"Well, good. Now she knows. Now she gets to decide what the hell she wants to do with it, instead of having _you _decide that for her."

Tony's throat closes up at that, and he staggers backwards, resting his head heavily against the wall. "I can't live without her for a second time."

"You can't force her to keep you in her life."

"Just like you shouldn't have forced me to keep her in my life."

"_Really, _DiNozzo?" Gibbs asks incredulously. "You were the one who wanted to go to Somalia. Came up with all the plans, gathered all the resources; hell, I worked every angle I could with Vance, but _you _were the one with that burning desire to _kill _someone because she was dead. And now you're tellin' me that because she's alive, you don't want her anymore?"

"Of course _I want her!_" Tony barks. "But what if she doesn't want me?"

"Then deal with it!" Gibbs barks back, his eyes drilling into Tony's skull. "You could've not listened to me, DiNozzo. You coulda gone to the hospital and said, 'Hey, guess what? Now that you're back, I've lost my liking for you.' You coulda not moved in, because I said that moving in was up to you, but you moved in and you haven't left yet. So don't blame me for this, because guess what? I'm not the keeper of your actions."

Tony laughs bitterly. "I know."

"You're a grown man. You fell in love, and you made a decision to help the woman you were in love with. That doesn't make you a monster. It just means you have to deal with the consequences of your actions!"

The senior field agent breathes out, pain tugging at his heart. "I know," he answers more quietly.

"Tony. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you always knew you had to deal with this, didn't you?"

"Yeah," he admits.

"So, why'd you make the decision to stay?"

Tony draws in a shuddering breath. "I guess, because I had to."

"Obligation?"

"No … not really." He shakes his head. "Need."

Gibbs watches him for a few moments before nodding. "Lunch break is in two hours. You're on desk duty until then. After that, go back to her, hug her, say what you need to say, and come back here _focused, _because I need you alive in the field. We _all _need you alive. Do you understand that, DiNozzo?"

Tony nods, and Gibbs gives him a light tap on the side of his head before pulling the brakes. The elevator doors slide open.

"Go," Gibbs orders, and Tony goes, somehow feeling more and less confused all at the same time.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Chapter Eleven**

Five minutes into driving home, he realizes one of the greatest oversights he's ever made: He's forgotten to give Ziva a cell phone, a landline phone, or even a computer with internet, effectively cutting off all forms of instant communication from her to the rest of the world.

Heart thumping with absolute horror at that thought, he presses his foot to the pedal. He arrives home a record-breaking ten minutes earlier than he's ever arrived in time for anything, but the sight that his eyes are greeted with as he crashes through the door tells him that he couldn't have been ten minutes too soon.

Ziva, huddled in a corner, her eyes red-rimmed and her breathing irregular.

His arms are around her in an instant even though she flinches at the suddenness of the contact, and then she sniffles and turns her face into his shoulder. "I had a panic attack a few hours after you left," she confesses tearfully. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, Zi." He shifts on the floor and pulls her into his lap. "Why are you sorry?"

"I tried. And I disappointed you, and I'm sorry."

"Hey, you didn't disappoint me." He tousles her hair and kisses her feverish skin. "You never disappoint me."

A sob leaves her throat. "That's not true."

"Ziva…" He touches his fingers gently to her jaw, tilting her face upwards so that her eyes meet his. "I am so, _so _proud of you for having come this far."

She shakes her head shamefully and closes her eyes. "I haven't … gotten anywhere."

"Says the woman who watered the tree in the courtyard yesterday. Last week, you wouldn't even step outside."

"You helped me."

"And in two weeks, you won't even need my help. Ziva, this is gonna get better. You have to believe this." Hiccupping, Ziva wipes at her face and nods reluctantly, and his heart twinges with the regret that he'd forgotten to cover all their bases.

"Tell you what," he continues, nuzzling her cheek as he makes a snap decision. He pulls his cell phone out of his pants pocket and presses the device into her palm. "_Anything _you need, call or text McGee, and I'll have him relay the message to me."

She stares at the phone curiously. "Won't Gibbs be mad at you for not having your phone?"

"Probably." He shrugs. "But I don't care. You need this more than I do."

"Tony, no." She weakly attempts to hand the phone back to him, but he pushes it towards her.

"Nah, take it. It'll make me feel better." She still looks unconvinced, so he rubs her cheek and grins teasingly. "Aren't you gonna tell me that you're not here to soothe my ego?"

She chokes out a laugh and shakes her head. "No."

"Okay." He presses another kiss to her skin and squeezes her hand. "C'mon, let's go have lunch."

Nodding, she slips her arms around his waist for a split second before standing and helping him up.

xoxo

His first order of business immediately after returning to work from lunch (Ziva, thankfully, eats at what is _almost _a normal volume now) is to get McGee to look up a suitable phone for Ziva.

McGee obligingly scrolls through what must be hundreds of product pages and review pages, finally coming up with a smartphone that makes Tony stare at him like he's crazy, considering it's a pretty expensive device for pretty minimal use. But then McGadget points out the various apps that can be downloaded onto the phone to occupy Ziva's days, and Tony concedes that his probie has a point. He claps McGee on the shoulder in thanks and veers leftwards to head down to Autopsy.

Ducky and Palmer are happily poking inside a dead body when Tony appears at the door. Ducky takes one look at Tony and dismisses Palmer before turning to the senior field agent and saying, "Anthony, what can I do for you?"

"Ducky…" Tony starts hesitantly, "I think we should talk … therapy."

Ducky regards him with puzzlement. "Alright."

"I was hoping … you could find Ziva a good therapist who deals with torture or PTSD or something like that."

"Oh, did you need help with the list of therapists that Timothy gave you two weeks back?"

"No. No, it's not that." Tony shakes his head. "It's … look, it's not that I don't trust McGee, but he doesn't _know _those therapists. So, I don't trust Ziva to them…"

"Anthony." Ducky's eyes soften. "You must know that giving therapy to the friends of friends is not advisable from an ethical standpoint."

"What? Why?"

"Because it violates confidentiality. If _I _know that Ziva is receiving therapy from _my friend, _then it is infringing upon her right to privacy."

"Oh." Tony pauses, his heart dropping. "Please, Ducky. Today, I went home and found that she'd had another panic attack, and … this is getting ridiculous. I can't help her if I'm not there. Someone else needs to help her, and it's not like any of us know about torture…"

"You do realize that getting her therapy does not absolve us of any duty to be her social support network."

"I _know. _I'm still gonna go home to her every night. But she needs someone to … help her deal with the panic attacks."

Ducky watches him for a long time before sighing. "I'll see what I can do. My resources are limited, Anthony; quite a number of my friends are academicians without the necessary practising experience. But I do know one or two who deal with cases concerning traumatic experiences … I'll talk to them about it."

Tony breathed out. "Thanks."

"Have you talked to Ziva about this?"

"No. I don't know how she's gonna react."

"You should talk to her," Ducky chides him. "We cannot force Ziva into therapy, no matter how much we think it is prudent. She needs to be informed of this."

"Okay." Tony sighs. "Think she's gonna spare me my life?"

Ducky grins and replies rather ominously, "Depends on how you bring it up."

That makes the senior field agent chuckle. "Well, that's optimistic."

Ducky sobers. "Anthony, might I suggest that you consider therapy for yourself as well?"

Tony bristles. "Why do I need any?"

"The pain is not hers alone to bear," Ducky answers lightly. "You have been through a lot these past few months, and now you are undertaking the task of caring for her 24/7. You are attempting to regulate her eating and sleeping patterns and, I suspect, get her anxiety levels to decrease. That's a lot to handle, even without knowing that a loved one has been through something that you might not necessarily have the power to undo."

"I'm _fine._"

"It is just a suggestion. At any rate, you have a list of therapists at the ready, should you ever decide to talk to someone."

Tony nods stiffly. "Thanks."

"And I will look into therapy for Ziva."

With another stiff nod, Tony whirls on his heels and stalks out of Autopsy, the vision of Ziva's wide-eyed, petrified face floating in front of his eyes.

It's taken him long enough to decide that Ziva really can't do this without professional help. The mere idea that he even _begin _to contemplate the idea of therapy for himself makes him want to throw up.

xoxo

Ziva greets him when he goes home that night.

Or, more precisely, the smell of piping-hot food greets him, while Ziva sits staring at the table, gnawing on her lip.

"What's this?" he asks, glancing at the table in surprise, and she shifts uncomfortably in her seat.

"Dinner."

"You heated dinner up?"

She fidgets. "Are you angry?"

He drops the keys on the dining table and squats so that he can look up at her face. "No, of course not. Why would you think I'd be?"

"I touched stuff."

"Yeah, and it's your stuff. You have the right to touch them."

"The kitchen…" she struggles. "I never touch anything in the kitchen. But I wanted to do something nice, and…"

"Ohmygod." He wraps his arms around her, kissing her cheek and feeling the tenseness in her body melt away. "Ziva, thank you."

"You're welcome."

A tiny blush is colouring her cheeks when he pulls away, the smile curving the corners of her lips making his heart skip more than a few beats. _A new milestone, _he realizes, _one where Ziva doesn't just reach out, but tries to give back. _And _boy, _if he'd thought that he was proud of her before.

_Small victories, Anthony._

Small victories.


	12. Chapter Twelve

**A great thanks to _mishka, _whom I, sadly, neglected to mention in my previous A/N. Thank you so much for your reviews!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

**Chapter Twelve**

The larger part of the week passes in much the same way.

Ziva's anxiety levels go up in the morning, as Tony's getting ready for work, and fall the closer to the evening they get. The calls he makes home when he has the time to the cell phone that McGee had delivered to her on Monday night seem to help, but the panic attacks sometimes arrive without warning nonetheless, leaving her in a tearful state of helplessness and grossly misplaced guilt for many hours.

He returns home each night to hot food but a woman way too eager to please, sometimes so much so that it grates painfully on his already-overtaxed nerves. At lunch, Ziva is often in tears; at dinner, she is tense and rushes to fulfil his every need, drawing him baths and fluffing his pillows and relentlessly checking on his general state of comfort even when he suggests that she rest instead.

He asks himself if his unintentional confession has anything to do with her bizarre actions. The idea is too horrifying to contemplate—he could never want Ziva to think that his love for her is contingent upon her keeping him well-satisfied. Yet, there seems to be no other explanation. And so, the unaddressed issue which he had so hoped could be ignored keeps him in the state of constantly being high-strung. Guilt, joy, worry, and irritation battle one another in the small house, and the pressure in both of them builds, inching closer and closer to the tipping point where everything falls apart.

That point comes on Friday, after Ducky informs him of a friend willing to try out therapy with Ziva. Tony goes home with hope and trepidation competing for space in his heart. He tentatively brings up the idea to Ziva over dinner, unsure of how she'll react; but whatever he'd been expecting, it isn't the container of food that sails right over his head.

"I'm not broken!" she suddenly screams, catching him completely off-guard because he hadn't said at all that she was. "I'm not broken! Stop telling me I am!"

The very words make his blood curdle, the accusations hurting him as deeply as Abby's knick-knacks which follow the trajectory of the thrown meal. He is decorated with cuts and the entire place is turned upside-down in minutes, but he tries still to appeal to the bit of Strong Ziva that he _knows _is trapped beneath all that grief and pain.

He snaps when the boat that they had built together crashes into mangled pieces at his feet. Not a single piece had hit him, but he feels as if, more so than with any other flung object, all the shards have gone straight through his heart; and he doesn't try to stop her this time as she lifts Gibbs' boat above her head. Instead, he turns on his heel and leaves.

Not even the devastated wail that arises from within the house as the door slams shut is enough to make him turn back.

xoxo

He can only take ten minutes of Ziva's crying without doing anything.

That's what he learns as he paces outside in the courtyard, willing himself to calm down and waiting for _her _to calm down. He eventually manages to go ten steps without wanting to yell at her or punch something, but she never stops crying in the hair-raising manner that makes him question why their neighbours haven't looked out of the windows yet.

When he opens the door, he finds her kneeling in the exact spot where he'd left her. Legs pressed into wooden splinters without regard; body curled into itself; arms wrapped around herself as she rocks with grief that had not wholly been expressed thus far. She pushes against his embrace, struggling and hitting whatever she can reach, and he holds on for dear life and closes his eyes to stave off the hot tears that threaten to run down his cheeks.

Eventually, after what feels like hours, her haunted wails calm down to an occasional whimper.

He learns that every step of anger he takes away from her comes at a price, though. Her eyes are empty again; her face, impassive as he tries to talk to her. She does nod when he asks her if she wants to go to bed, but then pulls herself from him and curls up in an empty spot on the floor, looking small and lonely in the foetal position she adopts. He sits down on the bit of carpet below her feet and stays up the whole night, ready to soothe her in case any nightmares come her way. But she never stirs, and he is left to wonder alone, with a broken heart, if they are now further back than square one—and if it is all his fault.

Over the weekend, friends visit. Their attempts to talk to her are in vain once more; she greets them and nods or shakes her head where a response is expected, but otherwise recedes into a dark world where no one can get to her. He sees the questioning glances at the stained carpet and the now-empty bookcase, and the silent accusations on his friends' faces, but no one really asks him what has happened.

With his prompting, Ziva resumes eating and migrates back to the bed. Throughout it all, she doesn't look at him once.

Gibbs stays back on Sunday night and barks at Tony a fierce order to go home to his own apartment; in the words, Tony hears the true meaning that he has blown his one-and-only chance. He packs up and returns to his apartment that night.

Glancing around the space that he has not been inside—save for the occasional rushed trip to collect the necessities—for nearly two months, he realizes something: That he has not called this place "home" for a long time. Ziva's apartment had been his home for weeks, and he had been returning home to Ziva for weeks.

And now, he does not have anything in his life to return to anymore.

With a sigh, he pulls open the fridge door and cracks open the first can of beer that he's touched since he'd originally set foot in Ziva's apartment.

He's always known that he is meant to have to disengage from her eventually.

It's just never occurred to him that he'd ruin her life even more before then.

* * *

**Yes, there are explanations in the next chapter as to why Tony and Ziva reacted the way they had :) whether or not those explanations seem logical to you, I cannot say, but I'd like to mention right now that there are several "arcs" in this story line, and that this is one of them. This topic will be mentioned in a few chapters before it's considered as "resolved."**

**-_Soph_**


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Chapter Thirteen**

The loud pounding pulls him out of his slumber the next day, making him aware of two things: One, that the light shining into the room grows brighter the more conscious he becomes; two, that the dull thudding behind his temples strengthens accordingly.

He groans painfully, prompting a jarring _crash _from what he assumes can only be the general vicinity of a door. He wonders for a second about where he is and what has happened, but then McGee's annoyed face swims gradually into view, and it all comes flooding back. He groans again.

"_Tony,_" McGee snaps loudly, seemingly unsympathetic towards his plight. "I've been looking for you all morning."

"Hung-over," Tony forces out, and McGee rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, I can see that."

The younger man holsters the gun which Tony hadn't even known McGee had been holding and hauls Tony roughly into a sitting position before stalking off, leaving the senior field agent with his mouth hanging half-open. Tony slips sideways dangerously against the leg of the coffee table; he is a foot from hitting his head painfully against the floor when McGee reappears and pulls him upright again. The junior field agent hands him a glass of water.

"Drink this," McGee commands in a softer voice. "What happened?"

Tony swallows a gulp of water. "I drank. Alcohol."

"Last night? Yeah, you did." McGee indicates the various cans and bottles strewn around the room. "But why?"

It takes Tony a while to remember _why, _and then his heart sinks when it comes back. "I ruined her," he mutters.

McGee pauses, seemingly at a loss for words. And then, "What happened? With her."

Tony laughs bitterly, only to regret it as pain shoots through his head. "Ack. Aren't you on the rub-Tony-out-because-he-hurt-her team? Because I seem to remember a pretty hateful look last night."

"I was mad," McGee admits sheepishly. "She was so … still. But then I figured it can't be easy, having to take care of Ziva all the time."

"Yeah, well…" Tony looks away. "Not anymore, right?"

"Maybe she'll forgive you."

"I don't need that. _Nooo,_" Tony sniggers. "I just needed her to get better, but now that's not gonna happen."

McGee frowns. "That's not a whole lotta faith in Ziva."

"You don't get it, McGee—how much I invested in her. How much I'd hoped she was gonna get better. But then I suggested therapy, and everything just fell apart … I don't even get it. I brought up therapy once, a long time ago. She didn't seem to mind it then. Or maybe it's not that she didn't mind it, but she didn't react _this _strongly. She—"

"How did she react?" Mcgee asks, cutting into Tony's monologue to remind him that the younger field agent hadn't seen anything. "This time, I mean."

"Threw a fit," Tony answers bitterly. "Threw everything at me—that's why Abby's knick-knacks are gone. I flipped out when she threw our boat and…" he struggles, his bottom lip trembling. "That was the only thing we'd worked on together. She could've saved that, at least."

"What happened then?"

"I stormed out and left her to cry on her own." He snorts humourlessly. "Bright idea."

"Tony … I don't think she purposely meant to throw the boat."

"So, what, it was accidental?" He sets the glass onto the coffee table, wincing at the sound when he accidentally drops it down too hard. "I get it; she wasn't in full control of her feelings. But you can't blame me for feeling angry."

"I guess not," McGee answers carefully.

"I mean … that was all we had, y'know? And now I have nothing left."

"Tony, you still have _her._"

"She's not mine to have," Tony retorts mutinously. "Gibbs kicked me out last night. I've lost my chance. You should just let me drown in alcohol."

"Like you did when you'd first thought she was dead?" McGee raises his eyebrows. "I don't think so. I don't think I could bear to watch you self-destruct a second time."

"Last night, you were ready to feed me to the wolves."

McGee has the good sense to look penitent. "I guess I should've heard you out first."

"Doesn't matter now." Tony leans his head awkwardly against the cold surface of the coffee table. "McGee, she's gone from my life."

McGee stares at him broodingly and sighs. "I'll talk to Gibbs."

"And tell him what? That she'd broken our boat, and so it was okay for me to be angry at her? When is it _ever _okay for me to be angry at her?"

"Tony, you're human, too."

"Yeah, thanks for being so understanding. Tell that to Gibbs and see if _he _understands."

"He doesn't know any better than me what had happened, either. And even if he doesn't understand, what are you going to do? Not talk to Ziva forever?"

"She's not talking to me. Or do you not see that?"

"She didn't talk to you when you first got there, but she talked to you after that."

"I only get one chance, McGee." Tony regards the junior field agent seriously. "_One chance. _She's not gonna want to talk to me a second time. _She's not going to want to try for me for a second time._ So, just drop it, okay?"

McGee sighs again and shakes his head. "Fine. For now, since I gotta get back, anyway." He opens his palm and drops two pills onto the table beside the glass of water; Tony wrinkles his nose. "Aspirin. Take those, drink some water, and go back to bed. I'll tell Gibbs that you're in no shape to turn up."

"Thanks."

"One last thing, though."

"Yeah."

"This 'chance' that you don't think you have anymore—is it in her head, or only in yours?"

xoxo

Ducky drops by late that night, taking the time to hang up his jacket before turning to Tony with a weary expression. "I've just been to Ziva's."

"Oh." Tony rubs a foot against a spot on the carpet. "How is she?"

"Not good, to be honest." Ducky closes his eyes tiredly before opening them again. "She was crying up quite a storm, but I managed to calm her."

"Really?" Tony pauses, his heart sinking. He's been optimistically hoping that things have been better without him there; that she could smile again if he weren't there. "Wait, how did that happen?"

"Whatever do you mean?"

"I mean … she wasn't crying, when I left. Wh-… What happened?"

"I am not very certain," Ducky answers broodingly. "It is not that she was incoherent as much as it is that she seemed to be referencing events which I had no idea had happened. She mentioned the tree in the courtyard, in particular, and how she had been trying to sum up the courage for days to step out to it so that she could be under it when you got home."

Tony freezes. "Oh."

"She said she'd wanted you to be proud of her," Ducky adds, and Tony stumbles back to sit on the armrest of his couch because _this is too much._

"Ducky," Tony murmurs, wiping his hand over his mouth. "This is not normal."

Ducky approaches, crouching over slightly to look at him. "What isn't, my dear boy?"

"_Her. _Trying to please _me. _I mean … what the hell happened? A week ago she was barely speaking to me and I was _just _getting her to open up, and then … what the hell happened? Now she's trying to please me? Is there no in-between point with her or something?"

"You think that, because she wants you to be proud of her, she's trying to please you?"

"Yeah! I come home every night and there's dinner on the table. It's like she's a Stepford Wife."

"Anthony, I am fairly certain that dinner on the table does not constitute behaviour that is out of the ordinary."

"It does for _Ziva._ I mean, do you even know what she used to be like?" Tony rubs his face. "If I'd even suggested that she greet me at home with dinner, she would have gutted me and had _me _for dinner. Now she twitches like a frightened rabbit around me, and I don't even know what I've don—I shouldn't have told her that I love her. It's screwed up, because I _do _love her. I _do, _but I just want her to know that I don't love her only because she pleases me."

"Have you trie—"

"Hell, I don't care whether she pleases me," Tony cuts in wildly. "I was fine with just helping her; I mean, she should know that. We spent so many weeks together. She should know that I'm not leaving."

_And yet, he has. _Ducky doesn't mention that, though. "Have you tried telling Ziva that?" the older man just repeats gently instead.

Tony breathes out. "No. But, I mean, what am I gonna say? 'Don't do that; it sucks'? She seemed so eager to wait on me hand-and-foot whenever I stepped into the house. It's bizarre."

"Perhaps she is merely incorporating you as part of her healing process."

"So, what, I'm her new goal?" he asks with incredulity. "I mean, it shouldn't be this way. She should be proud of herself, not waiting for me to be proud of her. I already _am _proud of her. Why is she trying so hard?"

"Anthony, it's not uncommon to work for the validation of our loved ones, even if it is possible to go overboard. But perhaps, if you feel that she is going too far, you could try to talk about it with her."

"I don't know what to say."

"Exactly what is on your mind. Perhaps in a gentler tone," Ducky adds with a wry smile. "But you should know that Ziva feels as if she does not have much to be proud of herself for, now. She is relying on you to be that strength for her."

"It … i-it just shouldn't be this way," Tony repeats lamely.

"Perhaps not. But it wouldn't hurt to have your support while she works for it." Tony turns away, ashamed, but Ducky sits down on the couch and looks up at him intently. "You shouldn't be too hard on yourself, either. It must've been an alarming change."

"It was," Tony admits. "I thought I'd screwed up just … saying what I shouldn't have."

"I'm assuming that what you said to Ziva was what you mentioned earlier—that you love her—but they are neither hurtful nor hideously inappropriate words, Anthony."

Tony sucks in a deep breath. "I know you're gonna say that it's not wrong to love her, but…" He shakes his head. "Y'know, I felt so hurt when she threw that boat. The boat we made together, I mean—the one we put next to Gibbs'. I mean, that was the one thing … during the whole process of making it, she actually _talked to me._ Gave me input. Painted the whole damn thing so beautifully. I'd thought it was our hope, because she actually talked to me, and she took it and…. I mentioned therapy. That was it. Then she turned into this … screaming fit that accused me of calling her 'broken.' I never _said _that, Ducky. I never called her—I would never call her that. I would never do that to her."

He looks at Ducky pleadingly before continuing, "I mean, I know sometimes I wonder, but … I would never suggest therapy if I thought she couldn't heal. I wouldn't have called her 'broken' like she couldn't be helped, because I know … _I know she can be._ But she said it like I'd given up on her; like I was insulting her. I was so damn _eager _to see her get better, so damn _hopeful, _but she just … threw away everything we had with that damn boat. She didn't even care that she'd broken it."

"Oh, Anthony," Ducky sighs. "I don't think Ziva saw things that way."

Tony shrugs. "It never mattered to her as much as it did to me."

"I am not implying that your relationship does not matter as much to her as it does to you," Ducky counters. "But simply that she cherishes a different aspect of it. Think about it: She would not have striven so hard to please you if you did not matter to her. As it is, your pride for her was what mattered most in her eyes, but perhaps, when she didn't get the response she desired for the things she was doing, only to be told that she needed therapy, she felt as if she was losing you. The same way you felt when she threw away the boat which mattered to you."

"She threw it _at _me," Tony clarifies miserably, playing with his fingers, "but I guess I never thought of it that way."

"'It is often those in the middle of a situation who cannot see things as clearly as those by the side-lines.' There is a Chinese proverb to that effect, I believe. Now, I don't know if I buy into that completely, but there is something to be said about holding closest to one's own point-of-view."

Tony chuckles sadly. "Yeah."

"Do talk to her," Ducky encourages gently. "She misses you, I believe. She did give me a message to pass along to you: That she's 'so sorry.' I don't know about you, but I don't think those are the words of someone who wishes never to speak with you again."

Tony starts, aware that he hasn't really mentioned to Ducky how he thinks he and Ziva might never speak again. But then, looking into the older man's knowing eyes, he can only exhale painfully. "I'll try." He hesitates. "D'you think she's awake right now?"

"I don't know, but she does have a phone. You could always call her and ask her if you could drop by for a visit."

Tony brushes at his eyes. "Yeah. Thanks, Ducky."

"Always a pleasure, my boy. And, for the record…"

"Yeah?"

"We do care about you, too. Even Jethro with his brusqueness. Do not mind him; his bark is always worse than his bite."

Tony only gives the medical examiner a small smile, uncertain if he believes Ducky completely.

* * *

**Alright, I'll be honest with you :P I've never been hung-over before. As such, I have no idea if Tony's hung-over-ness is at all plausible (most likely not, lucid as he is), but if it is not, can I beg a little creative license? Okay.**

**The Chinese proverb Ducky mentioned is 当局者迷，旁观者清 (dāng jú zhě mí, páng guān zhě qīng)。 Basically, it means what Ducky said-it's really a statement into the objectivity or subjectivity of perspectives.**

**To those who reviewed: Fear not; I have not forsaken you! :P I'm merely being very lazy at the moment. But since the guilty conscience is strong in me, I will reply to your reviews as soon as tomorrow morning :D**

**Thank you for reading, everyone!**

**-S_oph_**


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Chapter Fourteen**

Ziva's voice is barely a sleepy murmur when she answers the phone, proof that she _had _been asleep before he called. But when he hesitantly asks if he can visit, she hesitantly answers in the affirmative, and he thinks that he might've heard a slight catch in her voice as she tells him that she will wait up for him. His heart breaks as he hangs up.

He's never deserved a woman as good as her.

He drops by a late-night, still-opened—God only knows why, except to cater to idiots like him—pizza place and picks up her former favourite before he goes to her. She's still not eating pizza, but he figures that it's as good a time as any to get her to try some. If only just to show her that he hasn't given up on her.

Gibbs glares at him when they meet at the front door, and the requisite warning head-slap is delivered to Tony's head. But the older man then steps out without word or protest, and Tony thinks that the thin, nervous-looking woman sitting at the edge of her bed might have something to do with it. He sees the flicker in Ziva's eyes as he steps inside and holds up the pizza box, even though she isn't really looking at him.

"Pepperoni," he tries.

She rises obligingly and sits at the table without a sound, as in the days when he had first come to her. He draws up the chair that he had added since and sits closely beside her, opening the box.

"I know you don't eat pizza," he continues, trying to keep the waver out of his voice, "and I'm not gonna make you eat it, especially this late at night. But y'know … I just thought, in case you wanted to try…" he tapers off pointlessly, feeling deflated. He'd wanted to talk to her. He still wants to talk to her. But he doesn't know where to begin, especially when she's being so silent.

Studying her, he realizes painfully for the first time that her silence is of a different quality than when they'd started out. Then, she had been indifferent; almost dead in her movements, she had made no attempt to reach out simply because she had seen no purpose in reaching out. Now, her fingers make tiny, nervous movements against one another, and her head is bowed; her aura is sad, almost depressed. _She's upset, _he realizes, _in a way that she hadn't been before. _He hadn't sent her hurtling back to square one—he'd sent her into a different game altogether.

She flinches hard at the sudden urgency that he uses to pull her into his arms, but then a choked noise leaves her throat, and her body starts to quiver and she's crying into his shoulder, bits of his shirt bunched tightly into her fists. He rubs her back and shushes her, whispering to her words of reassurance. He has no intention of leaving now—just like he'd had no intention of leaving before, but he'd be _damned _if he doesn't _try harder _now. It's about time he manned up for her.

xoxo

She sits up and regards him quietly with tired eyes when she eventually stops crying.

"D'you want to sleep instead?" he asks, and panic flares through her eyes as she gives a tiny shake of her head, her hands tugging unwittingly on his shirt. She's not going to believe so easily this time that he's not leaving her behind. He's lost the trust that he hadn't even known she'd had in him.

"Okay," he answers sombrely, shifting his chair closer to her and pulling the pizza box towards them. "Wanna eat?"

She removes a piece of pepperoni hesitantly, studying it. "It's not going to bite me, right?" she whispers suddenly, the wry smile on her face alerting him to the fact that she's joking. _Joking. _As if she hasn't just cried her entire heart out after spending weeks … not joking.

He gapes at her until she looks at him with worried eyes that might be an enquiry into whether he actually finds the joke funny, so he presses out a laugh. "Nope," he answers, and tousles her hair to make her smile.

She drops the pepperoni without eating it. "I'm sorry," she says brokenly.

"No, I'm sorry," he returns, about to continue his sentence when she cuts in with ragged breath.

"Ducky says I need to tell you what happened. So I am going to try. I did not mean to break your boat. I was … I was angry, because I felt like you were implying that I was … beyond your help. Which I rely on a lo—I do not like that, but…"

"It was our boat," he answers quietly when she breaks off, her eyes brimming with tears again. She swivels her head to meet his gaze.

"What do you mean?"

"It wasn't _my _boat. We worked on it together, y'know?"

"Yes…" She still doesn't get it.

"So, when you threw it…" He clears his throat, hating to have to be this honest. "When you threw it, it felt like you were ending … us. I mean, I know there's no 'us,' but I … count on being close to you," he ends stupidly, before exhaling and burying his face into his hands. _What the _hell _was that?_

"Oh," Ziva just replies softly and perplexedly.

He sucks in a breath and tries again. "I just didn't like that you said I'd called you 'broken,' okay? I never said that to you."

Ziva sniffles. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well…" he answers, looking up and pulling off a slice of pizza just so he'd have something to look at other than her.

She sniffles again, hiccupping suddenly. "Tony, I'm sorry to be a disappointment to you."

"You're not a disappointment to me." He frowns at her. "Why do you keep saying that?"

"Because you … you d-do a lot for me, and I can't repay you. I can't pay you back for the phone or the … days you stayed, and you had to walk me out to a tree and … I can't even do it myself. I'm so stupid."

She chokes on the last word, so full of pain and anger at herself that he can't help but to put down the pizza and pull her into his arms once more. His back protests at the awkward angle, but he persists, pressing a kiss to her warm hair and wiping at her eyes before saying, "Ziva, you're not stupid."

She opens her mouth to say something, but he shakes his head and continues, "No. Look, I know you're comparing how things were to how things are now, but you can't do that because … you didn't use to have those three months. Your life then and your life now is different."

"I know, but I just wanted you to see that I could be … _better._"

"I know you can be better." He kisses her hair again. "That's why I brought up therapy, y'know? Not because I think you're broken, but because I think that you could heal and are gonna be kickass if only you got some help."

She brushes at her cheek. "Not … you do not think that I am t-too damaged?"

"_No._" He bites his lip. "Ducky says you were doing all that stuff because you wanted me to be proud of you."

She inclines her head away, resisting his attempts to get her to look at him. "I wanted you to see that your attempts were not wasted."

His heart thuds painfully as he holds her tighter still. "I never thought that about you."

"I thought you thought that when you l-left."

"I'm sorry," he breathes out, leaning his forehead against the side of her head. "I'm so, so sorry, Ziva. I thought it was something else altogether."

She pats his forearm perfunctorily, as if trying to provide him with the comfort she can't herself find. "I don't want you to leave."

"I know. I'm _so sorry, _Ziva. I'm not leaving again."

* * *

**A reviewer mentioned in a review to the previous chapter the hope that Ziva knew Gibbs threw Tony out, and that Tony didn't choose to walk away from her. Since I can't figure out a way to work it into the fic, I'll just mention here that Ziva was in the room when Gibbs threw Tony out. The "leaving" referred to in this chapter would be when Tony walked out after she tossed the boat at him. Yea :D I hope that clears things up!**

**Thank you for reading this chapter; please review!**

**-_Soph_**


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Well guys, I got my transcript :D it's official. I'm graduating!**

**I just had to say that, hahaha.**

**Enjoy; please review!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

**Chapter Fifteen**

Gibbs turns up again in that half-psychic way of his just as they're preparing for bed. Tony stares at his boss, wondering if he is about to be evicted again, but Gibbs just draws Ziva aside and has a whispered conversation with the brown-haired woman. In the end, Gibbs kisses Ziva's temple and packs up. Throughout it all, he doesn't say a word to Tony, nor does Tony to him, but between all three of them lies the understanding that things are to return to as they had been.

Abby calls Tony at lunch the next day, requesting his presence down at her lab. He considers refusing for a moment. But no one refuses to see Abby, not because of her tendency to have her own way but because she's ultimately just a big-hearted goth who wants to do rightly by her friends; and so, he just says 'Yeah' and hangs up.

She is waiting for him when he enters her lab. Sliding off her stool, she holds out a box and says contritely, "Hey, Tony. I got you a cupcake."

"Thanks," he answers stonily, prepared to take the box and leave before everything gets out of hand, but Abby hesitates. She sets the box carefully down onto her computer table and bites on her lip, instead.

"I'm sorry I didn't ask you what happened on Friday night. McGee told me everything."

"I can't believe you guys sent McGee crashing through my door at 11AM on a Monday morning to ask me what happened, anyway. The whole weekend, none of you thought to give me the benefit of the doubt?"

She shifted on her feet. "I think we were all thinking of the hospital," she answers uneasily, and his heart drops. He sighs and rubs his hand over his face.

"That was a month ago."

"I know. But you didn't visit Ziva for _three weeks, _Tony. She was heartbroken."

"Oh, yeah? And my being there would've stopped her heart from being broken?"

"Yeah! 'Cause you're her friend, and she would've been happy to see you."

"So, what could I have said to have caused her to be this _happy?_ 'Hi, I'm glad you're okay. Sorry I sent you to your near-death; hope you get well soon'?"

"Tony, you didn't send Ziva to her near-death," Abby begins, but he interrupts.

"_Ohhh,_ that's right; I just sent her to be _tortured._" He smacks his open palm onto her table, making her jump slightly. "Save it, Abby. We've been through this. You know why I wasn't there, and if you can't accept it, then there's not a damn thing I can do about it."

Abby stiffens. "It wasn't a good reason, Tony."

"I went there!" he shouts. "I went there, and I stood at the main door, I stood in the damn hallway, but I couldn't go in! _None _of you saw that. You just assumed I was content to let her stew in her own problems."

"Well, why didn't you go in?"

"Because I ruined her _life!_ What was I supposed to have said to her? What the hell am I supposed to say to her _now, _for that matter? Some things can't be fixed with just some pretty words, Abby!"

"Then what are you still doing here?" she asks sharply. "Guilt?"

"No!" he splutters indignantly.

"You're here because you care about her and want her to get better," Abby continues boldly. "That wouldn't have made any difference at the hospital. You care about her, Tony; nothing else should've mattered!"

"But it does!" he snaps angrily. "To _you._ _You _say I care about her and that nothing else should matter, but one day your knick-knacks are gone, and _you _assume that _I'd _screwed up again. And yeah, maybe I had, but you didn't have to jump to conclusions so quickly! I'm _trying _here, Abby."

"I know," she admits.

"Then why couldn't you have accepted that maybe things are the way they are because I care about Ziva too much, not too little?"

The lab is silent save for the gentle whirring of Abby's 'babies' in the background. He stands staring at the scientist herself as she twists her fingers, the very picture of uncomfortable sorrow. "I'm sorry," she finally says again, and he averts his eyes.

"I know Ziva needs your support," he answers, deliberately making it sound like the end of his sentence even though his heart aches with the suppression of his words. _But I need your support, too. I need to know that I'm not gonna screw Ziva up. I need someone to _care._ I need someone to pay attention to more than just Ziva; to ask me how _I _am._

But even as he thinks that, he realizes how hypocritical his wishes are. Just yesterday, Ducky and McGee had dropped in on him, and both had checked for his wellbeing even though the latter had originally been accusing of him as well. That should be enough, Tony knows, because he has never been through anything serious enough to warrant the kind of support that can be relied on without fail. He's never believed in unconditional love, certainly, and seeing how much Ziva struggles to cope with life reminds him that he's never deserved it, either. If he and Ziva were to get into an argument again, and their friends were forced to pick sides, he would want them to pick hers. She has hope and a loving pseudo-family, perhaps even a future with a real one, going for her. He has … he _deserves _nothing.

And so, he breathes in deeply and pulls his mask back on, ready to pretend to Abby that all is forgiven and forgotten. Never mind that a large part of him still cries out with the pain of being so very _lonely._

He startles when he looks up with a grim smile to find Abby, wide-eyed and apparently watching him intently, right in front of him. "Tony, we care about you, too," she tells him insistently. He opens his mouth to protest her assumptions as to his thoughts, but she cuts him off. "We do! Gibbs and McGee and I. Ducky, too. And Palmer. Maybe even Vance, although I can never really be sure with him. But it doesn't matter if he does or does not, because _we _care about you. I'm sorry we didn't ask you what happened and believe in you more. We should have done that. I'm sorry. Do you want me to get Gibbs and Timmy down here to apologize?"

He gives her a tight smile. "It's fine, Abby." And it really is, because the apology wouldn't hit remotely near the crux of the issue. He hears Abby's words, but can't find it in himself to believe her; after all, he's just spent the entire weekend lamenting the aloofness of his friends. He brushes down his suit and straightens his shoulders. "So, what flavour's that cupcake?"

Abby hesitates again, looking uncertain, but in the end she drops the topic and reaches for the box. Opening it, she presents it to him. "Orange!" she crows. "With icing and sprinkles on top, 'cause that's how you like it, right? I'm more of a 'chocolate-flavoured' girl myself, but I asked a couple of friends, and they said this was the best one around. I hope you like it. I can get you more if you do."

He can't profess to being a big cupcake eater, considering that he's much more of a meat eater, but he hears the sincerity in Abby's tone and understands the sentiment she wishes to convey. So, he accepts the cupcake and gives her a hug in thanks. While he can't exactly say that her gesture warms him completely and steals away all of his loneliness, food therapy really isn't such a bad idea.

That, and he doesn't really have any space left in him for more loneliness.

xoxo

Guilt having burnt low in the pit of his stomach all day, he is tempted not to return home to Ziva that night. But then he remembers her imploring face and her wide, fearful eyes, and knows that he can't disappoint her once more.

He calls her and uses the excuse of having to pack a bag of his clothes to buy him more time to calm down, but upon returning to his apartment, that is what he really does. Half an hour later, he has everything he needs, so he locks up and heads to his car. Time to put on a brave front.

It shocks him immensely when the hug he's secretly been yearning for comes to fruition as he walks into Ziva's apartment and finds himself wrapped in the embrace of his diminutive partner. Taking a shuddering breath, he looks down with the expectancy of finding her in either tears or the midst of a panic attack, but instead, a small smile paints her face. It throws him off enough to make him bury his face into her hair and lean on her as if she were his crutch instead of the other way around.

"Hey," he whispers to her, and she reaches up a hand to gently stroke his cheek.

"Hello."

"So, what's up with this?"

"You came back," she answers simply, and he kisses her forehead.

"Yeah, I did." He smiles down at her, holding up the box Abby had given him. "So, Abby gave me a cupcake." _Never mind why Abby gave me a cupcake. _"How does that and pizza for dinner sound?"

Ziva hesitates. "I was wondering what to do with the pizza."

He chuckles. "Were you just gonna leave it in the fridge until it started to grow mouldy and we had to throw it out?"

"No," she answers, even though the colour on her cheeks might suggest otherwise.

"Well, we could always feed it to the others when they come visit. Before it grows mouldy, I mean. No point in wasting perfectly good pizza." He rubs her back. "But, y'know, if you're looking for a break in routine…"

She wrinkles her forehead.

"It's just pizza and a cupcake, Zi. You're not gonna throw them up, I promise."

"How do you know?"

"Because your system can handle it now. People try new foods all the time and don't throw up. And you used to love pizza. I think maybe your body remembers that somewhere in there."

"I do not think it works that way, Tony."

"We could still try. If it doesn't work, you have me and a giant bucket in the bathroom."

She chews on her lip, clearly deliberating, before reluctantly nodding. "Okay."

"Okay." He bends slightly and whispers into her ear, "And just think about it: If it works, we could turn it into a routine and have it every Tuesday night, instead of just eating Abby's cooking forever."

That makes Ziva smile, at least.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Chapter Sixteen**

Tony turns out to be right—Ziva doesn't throw up her dinner. She does end up feeling decidedly ill, though, and so he climbs into the bed for the first time in many nights and holds her while she sleeps it off. With her head resting heavily on his shoulder and his thoughts caught up in the midst of wondering if her symptoms are physical or actually psychological, the sudden realization hits him that he hasn't watched a movie in more than a month. Or simply just crashed on the couch with a beer, aside from the one night when he'd tried to drink himself out of his mind. Or hung out with his few-and-far-between college buddies, even though that had stopped long before he ever found out Ziva was still alive.

He remembers when Ducky had once warned him about sacrificing too much of his life and ending up resenting Ziva for it. At the time, he'd wanted to laugh at the older man, because even the idea of _not _wanting to spend time with Ziva had been too ridiculous to contemplate. Ziva is his whole life. Yet, lying in bed doing nothing but holding her in the most platonic manner possible at ten o'clock on a work night, he sees Ducky's point. While Tony doesn't resent Ziva in any way, he does miss his independence—the freedom he'd once had in being able to do anything at all without having to consult with her. The exaggerated contradictions make him roll his eyes. Wanting her yet wanting time without her, yearning for her closeness yet looking to be apart from her—it's almost as if he can't make up his mind. He wouldn't give _her _up for anything; of that, he is certain. But the grind of going to work in the morning only to talk about her with their friends and then going home at night only to check on her and offer her any comfort she needs is starting to wear on him.

She sighs in her sleep just then and burrows her face into his shoulder, sliding her hand across his chest. He gives her once-again still figure a sad smile. _Maybe things will get better soon, _he tells himself. Maybe one day he'll wake up and find that everything is okay again.

Maybe.

xoxo

When he wakes up, he finds that things are far from okay: It is Ziva's birthday, and he has forgotten that fact in the face of more distressing matters. Despite his panic that he hasn't gotten her a present, he notices that she doesn't seem to have remembered her own birthday, either; in fact, wishing her a happy birthday only earns him a sad, fleeting smile and a quiet admission that she hasn't been keeping track of the dates. She then serves him breakfast and sees him off on his merry way to work, as if her own birthday is of absolutely no consequence to her.

He spends the entire day trying to figure out what to do as a celebration. It shames him to realize that of the entire group, he and Ziva are the only ones to have forgotten her birthday; the others all have their presents by their sides, awaiting delivery. On Abby's lab table sits a creatively wrapped microscope set; at his raised eyebrows, the goth shrugs and explains that things probably get boring in the 'thingy-place' that he and Ziva live in, and that the landlord probably won't notice a few missing paint chips or mould colonies. McGee has a beautifully stylized pen-and-diary set ready; Ducky, two boxes of particularly nice-smelling tea. Palmer, quite predictably, has a board game. Gibbs doesn't share what he's gotten for Ziva. Tony doesn't ask. The senior field agent simply buys the cake that he's been tasked with fetching and a huge stuffed teddy bear with embroidery across its tummy, because the bear makes him smile and he thinks that it would make _Ziva's _face light up, too.

Gibbs lets them off early that night, and together, they all head to Ziva's apartment. Tony still doesn't speak to his boss, but tries to keep the degree of ice between them to a minimum for Ziva's sake. The impromptu evening celebrations thus pass joyfully; despite her earlier indifference, Ziva beams when presented with the birthday cake, and he even catches her tearing up at McGee's gift. She tries a bit of the cake, an act that Tony thinks marks the success of the evening more than anything else.

Tony is right about his own gift to her, too. She only sets the teddy bear by her pillow when they go to bed that night, but through the moonlit darkness, he sees her fingers silently curl around a furry paw and a tiny smile paint her lips.

xoxo

The return to a normal routine the next night means that he is once again faced with the reality of Ziva's heavy reliance on him. She doesn't greet him with a hug this time, but does inform him that she has drawn him a bath and will heat up dinner while he takes a few moments to himself.

As he wants—theoretically. When it comes to their relationship, though, things are much messier; this bath only reminds him of the previous two baths she'd drawn him in the desperate hope for his approval before everything had fallen apart. So he pulls her carefully to him now, feeling the more uncertain of what to say the more wariness creeps into her eyes.

"We've had a tough few days," he begins on a whim, rubbing her cheek softly. "Thank you for the bath, but I'm sure you want one, too? So, why don't you go take yours while I get us dinner, and I can draw my own later."

She fidgets, starting out to say many things but not saying them at all. Finally, she settles for blurting, "I don't like baths."

"You don't?" He pauses, surprised, and she shakes her head.

"They … did things to me that … involved drowning…"

"Oh," he answers, his heart sinking. "But you draw baths for me."

"I thought you would enjoy them." Her voice comes out jerkily. She doesn't elaborate, but he hears behind her words the confirmation of his fears.

He sighs deeply and kisses her cheek. "I do, but only if it makes you happy to do these things."

"Oh," she answers, "okay." She starts to turn away, humiliation etched clearly onto her face, but he keeps his hold firm and unrestrictive around her.

"That doesn't mean I don't appreciate them. I'd just rather know that you were happy than that you thought you had to please me, y'know?"

She taps absent-mindedly against his arm, blinking back her tears. "You do a lot of things for me."

"I do. But that's because I want to, for you."

"I do want t—I can't repay you."

"I'm not looking for repayment, Zi. If, one day, you decide you have enough going for you and you can give back, then I'm fine with it. But, for now, just let me take care of you. This is not _conditional. Nothing _is going to change the fact that I want to be here."

She breathes out and leans heavily into him. "I just don't know what to do anymore."

He strokes her hair lightly. "Just focus on getting better, okay? I got you. You don't have to worry about that."

xoxo

He sits her by the still-filled tub after dinner.

At first, her eyes just dart back and forth between him and the now cold water, but then the anxiety turns into confusion when he leaves the room and rummages around only to return with her _Scrabble _board, placing it in front of her before looking for the least uncomfortable spot to sit in in the tiny bathroom.

"What are you doing?" she asks hesitantly.

"Playing _Scrabble,_" he offers with a smile.

"Why?" she questions, mystified.

"'Cause…" He hesitates, knowing that she's wondering about their unconventional location for playing board games but unsure if he should share his reasoning. "Maybe I just want to show you that the water is nothing to fear."

Tears spring into her eyes at that, and she looks down, ashamed. "You are catering to my anxieties."

"No, I'm not," he answers, even though he's never really sure if he is or is not. He takes up her hands and rubs his thumbs across her skin. "Ziva, look at me."

She looks up, fighting tears. "You can't compare the two situations, remember?" he continues. "Things are different now. But that's okay; we just have a different focus now."

She sniffles. "It's just that I do not want to be afraid, like a _baby. _I have not … I have not been this person for a long time, ever since I was a child, and it hurts to know that I cannot do something which normal adults take for granted. I did not use to be afraid of _anything._"

Her blunt honesty scrapes his heart raw, and he shifts the _Scrabble _board aside to gather her into his arms once again. She falls against him and brushes at her cheeks. "I am afraid of _water,_" she mumbles angrily. "How stupid is that?"

"Zi, it's not stupid," he answers, resuming his earlier pattern of stroking her hair. "And you are so, _so brave _for having fought it; for still fighting it. You—"

"I do not feel 'brave' right now."

"You _are._ Every time I see you fight that little bit just to get that little less scared, Zi … you're my heroine; I told you that before."

She glances up at him, looking as incredulous as he feels for having admitted to it. _Twice. _"Why?"

"Because…" _Because I love you. Because I admire you more than any woman I've _ever _met. _"Because you're kickass. Always were, still are. Just in different ways … but, I mean, you've been sitting in front of the tub for ten minutes and haven't panicked."

"Oh," she answers softly while she stares at the tub, as if she's realized that for the first time. "But you … you distracted me."

"Well, I _am _a pretty distracting man," he replies, chortling when she rolls her eyes, "but the accomplishment is all yours, Zi."

She looks away. "What if it's not enough?"

"Then we work on it more. Ducky once told me I had to count all the small victories … you do, too, Zi."

She sniffles and nods, and he brushes his lips against her forehead, watching as she reaches out at a snail's pace but, finally, sinks her whole forearm into the water.

If they didn't live for small victories, indeed.

* * *

**A/N: If the birthday section seems out of place, it is :P I'd forgotten all about Ziva's birthday until like, a few hours ago, and since this chapter was written two months ago, it was just a mad scramble to add this. I apologize! I accidentally made Tony more of a bastard than he's trying not to be, lol.**

**-_Soph_**


	17. Chapter Seventeen

**Chapter Seventeen**

Talking becomes their new way of getting her to fear less.

He alternates every night between walking her out to the tree—something he hadn't done since he went back to work—and sitting with her by the tub, talking a mile a minute in that usual chatty way of his. For once, his talent for never shutting up pays off. She hangs on to his every word and focuses on _him _more than anything else, a fact which he finds highly ironic because the communication part of them had been broken for a long time. Ever since Michael. Ever since Jenny. Ever since Jeanne.

It saddens him that things have had to get _this _far before he and Ziva return to anything the least bit resembling that one summer when they'd been close friends, but then one day, she initiates a water fight with him over a lost _Scrabble _game, and not even the late hour can curb his carefree laughter.

Another time, she manages to make it to the tree and back without spiralling into tears or panic attacks. She calls it a small accomplishment and explains it upon the cover of darkness, but he celebrates nonetheless, picking her up and spinning her in a circle, dancing her to silent music and horsing around until she laughs in the much same way that he had during the unforgettable water fight.

During the weekend, he takes a few hours off and gets Abby to keep her company. He sees in Ziva's eyes the mounting anxiety that he might not come back, but he kisses the Israeli's forehead, reiterates his promise to be back in three hours, and leaves regardless, knowing that he has to relief the itch to be alone for a while before he loses his patience with the situation and screws up again. He treats himself to a bagel and a coffee from the best coffee shop in town and then returns to his apartment for a well-cherished movie session. Later, he realizes that the break is what had inspired him to go back to Ziva with his laptop and a bagful of DVDs, telling her that they now have a new hobby.

And for the next few days, that is what they do. They gather in front of the laptop and pretend to have dinner while he keeps up a running, humorous commentary of the movie and she tries not to laugh instead, and then either sit by the tub or walk out to the tree after that. In many ways, their nights become the toned-down version of the summer Gibbs had gone away, even though he now loves her a lot more and, sadly, she now trusts him a lot less. Yet, it works. It is fun and a little closer to 'normal' than before, and it occupies their time. And the best part, really, is that he can see hints of _Ziva _returning to them.

She still manages to surprise him the Wednesday after his weekend off. Coming home from work, he is worried to discover that Ziva isn't waiting for him—but then he walks into the kitchen, and his worry turns into more worry. Ziva is standing at the stove in an apron and a hairnet, with a wok spatula in one hand and the handle of a gigantic wok in the other.

He gapes at her and asks rather pointlessly over the sound of prawns being fried, "Are you cooking?"

And she blushes. "Stir-frying," she explains. "Abby … suggested that I cook for the soup kitchen, and … I will still not be going out, but she will be dropping by to collect the food containers from me before lunch and return the containers to me after work. It is not the most conventional arrangement, but…"

He makes an attempt to close his still-gaping mouth, but has to sift through a number of questions running through his mind nevertheless, finally settling on the most befuddling one. "Isn't it a little _late _for lunch?"

Her blush darkens. "This is just practice. But you might have to eat it because I cannot…"

She pauses, struggling for words until he finishes her sentence. "Might not be able to stomach it?" She gives a little shrug. "Ziva … how's the smell?"

She breathes in. "Bearable," she replies, even though uncertainly lingers on her face.

He rubs his forehead and tries to look less clueless as he says, "Okay, you're gonna have to start from the beginning here, 'cause I think I missed out on a thing or two."

She turns off the gas and sets the wok spatula down carefully, biting her lip before she begins haltingly, "We—Abby, really—came up with the idea of having me volunteer at a soup kitchen. And I d-don't think she truly understands why I cannot leave the house, but she didn't laugh at me; she just said she'd talk to the director of the soup kitchen. Apparently, he is a friend. He said that I could do things this way. I don't know _why, _but here we are."

She finishes with a brittle smile and suspiciously shiny eyes which make him wonder how she really feels about the whole plan, so he approaches cautiously, pressing a kiss to her cheek before taking up her hands and saying, "And how does your decision fit into this whole thing?"

She averts her eyes, evidently guessing immediately what he means to ask. "I feel … helpless. Because even though I want to help, people keep having to accommodate me, and that is not the idea of volunteering. That is not the idea of _life. I _should be the one accommodating, not being accommodated to."

"You're still helping others by cooking."

"I know, but…" She takes a shuddering breath, her voice shaky when she continues, "These utensils —Abby bought them. She is going to drive up every afternoon to collect meals and every evening to deliver containers and every Monday morning to deliver produce. I am … putting her through a lot of trouble, just because I am too chicken to step out of the house. And the director of the soup kitchen has to change his plans to fit mine…"

"He made that choice, Zi. Just like Abby made hers."

She looks at him pleadingly. "Why should they have had to make it, when it is not their duty to?"

He chokes back his sadness and brushes his hand across her cheek. "Sometimes there's no 'why,' Zi. They just wanted to make that choice, so they made it."

She shuts her eyes tightly. "Am I being ungrateful?"

"No. Don't even think that. You're just … you just needed answers."

She nods reluctantly. "Tony, am I making the right decision?"

"I think so," he answers honestly. "Only you would know, Zi, but I like the idea."

"This is hard."

"Why?" He is genuinely puzzled.

"I just … want to _do _somethingagain."

"You're aiming for that."

"By being this?"

"Yes." He tugs playfully at her hair net, understanding the nature of her reluctance now. "Because yesterday, you weren't where you are today."

That makes a tiny smile curl the corners of her lips. "I suppose … this is not bad."

"Not at all," he answers smoothly, and her smile widens. Taking advantage of her relaxed state, he adds with a smirk, "And might I say, you look _ravishing_ right now."

Her eye-roll is only as exaggerated as his guffaws are loud.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

**A coupla notes :D first, this will be the new posting schedule from now on, until further notice :( once a week on Saturday night (my Saturday night), because I have been a bit busy lately and don't quite have the time to either write or reply to reviews. I have more time on the weekends, so...**

**Second, this chapter is rated a high T for a semi-graphic paragraph. It might also be a little out of the blue, but I think the whole topic had to be dealt with.**

**-S_oph_**

* * *

**Chapter Eighteen**

The tricky little balance that they've struck is shaken again on Friday evening, when he returns home to find her seated gingerly on the bed with a pinched expression and a decidedly pale face.

Concerned, he drops his backpack immediately and moves forward, but she holds up a hand, suddenly fearful as she half-yells, "Don't touch me!" He stops, hurt and more than a little more confused, and she takes a ragged breath before explaining, "I am a little more … painful, today."

A million scenarios, none of them comforting, run through his head at her words, and his mouth goes dry. "What? Why?"

Her cheeks turn slightly pink. "It is … it is almost … that time of the month. And I have never been regular, but I got it once at the hospital after Somalia, and it was … excruciating. I expect this time will be the same."

Her words become rushed the further into her explanation she gets, but he feels himself turn hot with embarrassment, anyway. Caught between staying to wait for the ground to swallow him up and running off screaming about how he should _never _be informed concerning feminine issues, he stares dumbly at her, very much wanting to look away but very much being unable to until she clears her throat loudly and says, "Don't look at me like that."

He swallows then and shuts his eyes tightly, trying to block out whatever images she definitely hadn't (_hadn't_) given him. "Sorry," he gulps. "Sorry. I just … um…"

"Wasn't expecting that?" Her voice asks wryly.

"Well, I mean, y'know, theoretically, but um…" He clears his throat, still refusing to open his eyes. "Okay. You have what you need, right?"

"Of course I do," she answers too sharply, and then sighs. "Abby gave me—… You know what? It doesn't matter what Abby gave me. She gave me _stuff._"

"Okay, good to know Abby gave you stuff. We're covered." He risks opening one eye a slit and peering at her. "Can we have dinner now and pretend this conversation never happened?"

"Tony." Her tone is so distressed that his eyes pop open and he looks at her properly, only to see her on the verge of tears with her shoulders hunched. She clears her throat again, much more softly this time, and wipes her nose. "The reason I am telling you this is because it hurts when I get my period and I cannot avoid my flashba—it would be good if you did not touch me."

She looks up at him, her face full of pain and her eyes glittering with unshed tears. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'm sorry."

"Ziva, no." He automatically steps forward but freezes when she flinches back involuntarily. Holding out his hands, he squats and then drops his hands to the floor, trying to make himself look as small and unthreatening as possible. "Why are you sorry?"

"I am … I know…" She tries shakily, stops, and then tries again. "I know you use this as a method to … help me. But, right now, I cannot handle it. It may be that you have to keep your distance for the next week or so, and … I'm sorry."

"Zi…" he murmurs, his heart breaking as she wipes a cheek. "That's not gonna change anything, you know that." Her head snaps up in panic before he realizes how he's unintentionally sounded. "No, not that. I don't mean I'm still gonna touch you; I mean … I mean I'm still gonna be here after this week."

"And the next?"

"And the next. I'm not leaving you, Zi, remember?"

She brushes her other cheek. "It just hurts, and I really wish—"

She abruptly ends her sentence there, clamping her mouth shut and—surprisingly, very like the old Ziva—refusing to say anymore, but he gets the gist of it. He sighs heavily and rubs his face. "Ziva … how bad?"

She laughs bitterly. "Twenty, on a scale of one to ten."

His fingers twitch as he suppresses the urge to just reach for her, and he chokes on thin air as he asks the question he's afraid to know the answer to, "Do you … do you know why it hurts?"

"No," she answers softly, looking stricken. She wipes her mouth and continues, "The doctors said there is damage to my uterus. But they also said that the pain might be psychological, and … I don't know. How can something psychological hurt so badly?"

His heart twinges with the realization that he hasn't the least idea, either. He almost wants to cry as he takes in her tense figure; the way she curls into herself with a miserable expression. In a fit of desperation, he stupidly blurts out, "Would it help if I gave you a shirt or something that smells like me … or something?"

The are-you-freaking-insane look she shoots him is enough of an answer.

xoxo

The next week-and-a-half is a struggle for both of them. Ziva spends her days in pain but insists, nonetheless, on doing all the cooking she and Abby had planned for. He goes home every night to find his partner lying on the bed with her breathing shallow and her figure curled around the teddy bear he had given her; judging by her loud whimpers after she falls asleep, the nightmares which she's not had for weeks, too, have increased in ferocity.

But the worst, the _absolute worst, _part of the whole ordeal are the fleeting glances she shoots him. Filled with the plea to take away her pain, they cut terribly at his heart, making him feel lost and impotent. He is desperate to comfort her, but she cannot stand being nearer than three feet to him, and so they are left with _only _talking. She makes him move the mattress Gibbs had brought for them during the second week to the other end of the room, and they spend every night in near-darkness, just listening to each other's voices. And then, one day towards the end of the seventh week after her release from the hospital, she tells him a story which he almost wishes never to have heard at all.

"It took Saleem Ulman and his … _friends_ … more than a month to figure out I wasn't getting my period," she says brokenly. "They thought I was pregnant. I tried to explain, but they told me that no one except a _freak _would not get her period every month. So, they used … _any _measures they needed, except for the medical ones, to carry out abortion procedures. I got my period a few weeks after that. They told me I'd miscarried; that they'd done it. And then they told me that I was useless, anyway, because I could not even carry a child."

"Were you pregnant?" he asks against his better judgement.

"No." There is a pause before she whispers, "I checked."

She cries herself to sleep that night, and he spends hours wondering how he's ever going to pretend to her that _he _isn't crying himself to sleep.

xoxo

On the Sunday morning seven weeks after the day Tony had originally set foot in Ziva's home, he awakens to a good mood and immense puzzlement, because she is curled up asleep in his arms on his mattress when he is pretty sure that he had left her on her bed the previous night.

His first reaction is that of a rapidly beating heart, because it is the first time he has held her in more than a week and _man, _has he missed her. Confusion soon supersedes joy, though, and he blinks in disorientation at her, considering waking her up and asking her what she's doing. Yet, she sleeps so soundly that the idea physically hurts him. The past week has been rough, and neither of them has been sleeping well.

He is about to close his eyes again when hers suddenly fly open, alarmed and wary. He stills completely, wondering if it is at all possible that she had somehow sleep-walked herself over to him. But then she shuts her eyes just as abruptly and shifts closer to him, her fist tightening very subtly around a bit of his shirt, and he drops his hand to her shoulder.

"Zi, what's going on?"

"I am feeling better today," she mumbles against him, and he relaxes as euphoria floods him. He chuckles and carefully rubs her cheek with the back of one hand.

"Welcome back." She peeks up cautiously at him, and his heart falls at the worry lines in between her eyebrows. "Hey. What's wrong?"

She looks away. "I should not have told you," she replies, shame tainting her voice, and he understands all of a sudden what is bothering her.

"Zi, it's okay."

"It was the hormones. I…"

Clearly without an excuse, she starts to rise, making to move away from him, but he keeps his hold on her. He strains his mind trying to think of words to say to her—something that would not be overly intimate or personal, at least—but comes up empty. In the end, he can only tug his blanket out from under her body and cover her with it, resting her head back into the crook of his neck.

"You _never _have to explain the need to talk to me," he tells her, and they turn out to be the right words after all, because she clings to him tighter than she ever has before.

And balance, even if different, is once again restored.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**Chapter Nineteen**

The following Monday is the first time in three weeks that he speaks to Gibbs about anything at all outside of work and Ziva's birthday. Hurt by his boss' immediate reaction of putting the blame of his partner's prior regression on him, Tony had forsaken giving Gibbs daily reports on Ziva's improvements, choosing instead to discuss things either with Ducky or not at all. Gibbs, for his part, has been sticking firmly by his rule of not apologizing, thereby—intendedly or not, Tony isn't sure—deepening the rift between himself and Tony.

Tony secretly grieves. Ducky is understanding and less judgemental, but he is also not _Gibbs, _who has a way of getting those around him to look up to him and respect the kind of experience he's had in life. Loathe as Tony does to admit to it, Gibbs is his role model; while there are some traits which he certainly wouldn't choose to emulate (such as the penchant for headslapping others), he relies a lot on the older man's guidance and approval as a sign that he is on the right track and doing the right things. Not having had Gibbs' acknowledgement for a period of time had thrown him into a spiral of insecurity where, with the added weight of Ziva's silence and Abby and McGee's anger, he'd lost perspective of his place in life, and he still burns with resentment at Gibbs for that.

And then, there's simply knowing that Gibbs plays favourites which stings quite a bit.

When his boss beckons to him on Monday afternoon and speed-walks towards the elevator, Tony assumes a lead from the morning's case; grabbing his backpack, he tails his pseudo-father-figure, expecting to have to continue the practice he's kept for the past three weeks of pretending that there isn't a giant elephant sitting in the middle of whichever space they're sharing. It throws him off completely when Gibbs slams on the brakes in the elevator, turns to him, and says warmly—albeit still without preamble, "Ziva's lease ends this week."

"What?" Tony asks before he can even process the words, and then tenses as they dawn on him. "How _can _it? It's only been two months."

Gibbs shakes his head sombrely. "Landlord gave us two months when we signed. Said his niece was moving into town. We were desperate; Ziva was gonna be discharged from the hospital and there was no better place. We thought we woulda found her a bigger apartment by now."

"'No better place'?" Tony repeats sharply. "What about _your _place, Boss?"

Gibbs pauses. "We thought it'd be better if she had her own place and we took turns dropping by instead … thought it'd give her some space to recover."

"And then _I _moved in." Tony snorts humourlessly. "Must've put a damper in your plans."

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs regards him steadily. "You got beef with me?"

"What do you think?" Tony snaps, before taking a deep breath and shaking his head. "Tell me again why you're letting me know _now?_"

"She needs a place to stay."

"And you're expecting me to just say, 'She can live with me.'"

"Can she live with you?" Gibbs challenges.

"Yeah, I can _ask _her if she wants to live with me," Tony answers coldly, feeling a fierce rush of anger. "But that's beside the point."

"So, what is the point?"

"Am I just a pawn in your little game or something?"

Gibbs shoots him an affronted glare. "Do I look like I'm playing a game?"

"I wouldn't know." Tony glares back. "First you tell me to stick with her, and then you tell me to get the hell out. Now you're telling me that you never meant for someone to live with her. So what have I been this whole time: Someone for you to move around and play as you wish?"

He grits his teeth against the pain as Gibbs retracts his hand. "Told you I wasn't gonna mollycoddle you. You hurt her, so I kicked you out. Grow up and get over it."

"Can't. You had no right to kick me out, Boss."

"Ziva wasn't gonna do it."

"Well, _Ziva _isn't your charge," Tony retorts. "Last time I checked, you aren't her legal guardian. So, if she was gonna kick me out, she could've done it herself. Wasn't it _you _who said that assuming otherwise would have been an insult to her dignity and her ability to cope?"

Gibbs studies him quietly for a long time, unblinkingly and without moving a muscle, until Tony starts to break into cold sweat. He's already wondering about the security of his job when Gibbs speaks again, "Ziva had a panic attack after you left."

Tony narrows his eyes. "You didn't try to headslap her out of it, did you?"

"Of course not!" Gibbs answers impatiently. "Talked her through it. But then she went into a crying fit for three hours, and I couldn't talk her through _that. _She didn't sleep very well that night."

Tony's heart sinks at that, and he feels the urge to pick a fight leave him. He hadn't known about the panic attack and the crying at all.

"Just gonna say," Gibbs continues, "that what you do for her is harder than I expected."

It's as close to an apology as the boss is ever going to get.

"Look, my job is to protect her, DiNozzo," Gibbs resumes steadily. "From _anyone. _If that someone happens to be you, then yeah, I gotta do what I gotta do. Doesn't mean I don't still care. You still got a job, don't you? I didn't stop you from hanging out with Abs or McGee or Ducky or Jimmy Palmer. Hell, you coulda hung out with _me _if you liked. But you got pissed at me instead—and you _shoulda _come to me and yelled it out instead of letting it fester into some right-or-no-right issue."

"You really didn't have the right," Tony mutters mutinously, unwilling to let it go just yet.

"Maybe not legally, but I gotta protect her, anyway."

"I am not her _enemy._"

"DiNozzo." Gibbs' voice is just quiet enough to make Tony shut up. "Never said you were. But one of you is gonna need more support sometimes. In this case, it had to be Ziva. If the situations were switched—"

"You never would've kicked her out, Boss."

"Yeah, I would have. Headslaps would just have been lighter."

Tony chuckles wryly. "Still … it would've been nice to know, y'know."

"Well, you're doing a good job with helping her," is Gibbs' cryptic answer as the man turns away to lift the elevator brakes, but the praise does give Tony a rare flash of pride.

xoxo

Bold as he had been while yelling at Gibbs, the idea of asking Ziva to move in makes Tony the more nervous the further into the workday he progresses. Living with her has been spectacular—at least, in his eyes—but asking her to live with him is different; she had needed his help and full support back then, but is becoming increasingly independent now. Now, she would be able to live on her own or with just about anyone else.

The possibility of rejection catches at his heart, only to remind him that it would be nothing out of the ordinary if she rejected him. They are, after all, not exactly a romantic couple, and he isn't even sure if she remembers what he'd once said about loving her. Even if she does, the point is moot; he would not allow her to move in with him on the sole basis of accommodating his feelings.

Doubts and thoughts of things becoming complicated ping about in his mind as he drives home that evening. By the time he steps through the front door, he is a nervous wreck; she has barely greeted him before he pulls her to sit down on the edge of the bed, wanting to get everything _done already_ at the same time that he wants to put everything off forever.

"Your lease for the apartment ends this week," he tells her, and when she freezes, he realizes that he should probably have used a better conversation opener. He really is _too much _like Gibbs.

"What does that mean?" she asks him, sounding dazed.

He licks his lips. "Well … it means you'll have to move out."

"Onto the streets?"

He frowns at the ridiculous question. "No. D'you think I came home just to tell you that you had to go live on the streets?"

She shuts her eyes and shakes her head jerkily, whispering, "Where do I go?"

"Hey." He catches hold of her hand, gently tilting her face upwards at the same time so that she looks at him. "You won't have _nowhere _to go, if that's what you're worried about. We _all _have a space for you. Always. Well, Abby's and McGee's apartments might be a bit small, but there's Gibbs and there's me and there's even Ducky, if you like. It's just, we can't find you a really good apartment of your own right now."

"An apartment of my own?" she repeats softly, searching his eyes.

"Yeah," he confesses uncomfortably. "We've been looking."

"But you can't find anything."

"Uh, not good ones."

She looks down, playing nervously with the fingers of his hand that she's holding. "But your apartment is too small for me, too," she murmurs, and his shoulders slump.

"Yeah, it is," he replies flatly. _I'd still make space for you, no matter what._

She tugs at his fingers. "But—" she starts, suddenly cutting off and eyeing her apartment with an air of desperation.

"Zi, what's wrong?" He brushes back her hair, and she turns back to stare down at his fingers, one hand hesitantly drawing pointless doodles in his palm, the other tightening its grip around his wrist in a way that gives him a flash of insight into what she might be thinking.

"Hey, you're not gonna lose me." He slides off the bed to squat in front of her. "No matter what you choose, I'll be here _whenever _you need me. I promise."

"But…" she begins again before her eyes dart away. "Why did you include your apartment in the list?"

"W-what do you mean?" he asks nervously.

"If your apartment is too small, why did you include it in the list of places I could move into?"

He swallows hard. _Now is the time._ "Because … I was … wondering if you might maybe wanna move in with me."

She stares at him. "You want me to?" she asks incredulously.

He glances downwards. "Hey, look, I'm not forcing yo—"

"I know."

"You know?"

"I know you're not forcing me."

He looks carefully back up at her. "Then yeah," he admits reluctantly. "I want you to."

She bites on her bottom lip. "I cannot pay you rent. I don't have any money."

"I know, Ziva. I wouldn't have asked if rent was what I was worrying about."

"And I would only put you out."

"I have spent two months with you," he answers, feeling his cheeks start to grow hot, "and I have never felt that way."

She studies him for a long time before drawing his hand nearer to herself. "But I want to," she says enigmatically, and—against his better judgement—he feels hope blossom in him.

"You want to move in? With me?" he asks.

"Is that okay?" she questions, anxiety shining through in her eyes.

"Yeah, it is." Joy and relief flood his body, and he rises to his knees to pull her in. "You have no idea how 'okay' it is."

And, ultimately, it is what makes her relax and hug him back just as tightly.


	20. Chapter Twenty

**Chapter Twenty**

Humourless as the situation is, the ironic thing about Ziva's breakdown from three weeks back is that they now don't need too many boxes for Abby's knick-knacks. They hardly need more than four boxes for the entire apartment, in fact: One for Ziva's few meagre pieces of clothing and random hygiene-related product items, one for _his _rather ample amount of suits and t-shirts, one for McGee's books and Palmer's board games, and one for miscellaneous stuff from around the apartment, including Ziva's smaller birthday presents. The bed sheets and pillow cases go into the last box as Gibbs and Tony stack the mattresses against one wall, ready for transportation (one to Tony's apartment and on which he's determined to sleep from now on; another back to Gibbs' house). Ducky's paintings and the gigantic teddy bear go carefully onto one side of the backseat of Tony's car, and they're ready to roll.

Just like that, the once-empty space becomes even emptier.

The hardest part about moving is really getting Ziva out of the house, into the car, out of the car again, and into his apartment. Try as she might, any attempts to go beyond the tree in the courtyard result in disproportionate amounts of anxiety; neither he nor she has any idea why that is, or how it's come to be. Sadly, he can see her giving up hope. Even as she recovers and talks to him and slowly starts to live again, the weight of her anxiety crushes her, seemingly giving her the fear that she may be forever housebound. Tony knows that, as different as the pre-Somalia Ziva and the post-Somalia Ziva are, she can't help remembering who she used to be, and that the memory of her once-fierce independence chafes brutally against her already-disintegrated pride. It makes him all the more eager to get her out into the world, because if he knows Ziva, then he knows that having _anything _hold her back would be the same as having _everything _hold her back. Ziva does not live for halfways, especially after what she's been through—it is all, or nothing at all.

That thought flashes through his mind as he wraps his arms around her, her hands held tightly in his own. "Are we ready?" he asks softly, and she bites her lip and nods. She doesn't speak a word as he manoeuvres her out of the house and slowly through the courtyard, even as her breathing starts to get shallow and erratic again; he knows it is not anxiety that keeps her silent, but rather anger at herself. The more of herself that Ziva gets back, the more she shies away from his help and berates herself for not healing as fast as she thinks she ought to; that, really, is the irony of their _whole _journey.

Irony thrives abundantly in their screwed-up little world, he's noticed.

Still, it is a moment to celebrate when he manages to deposit her in the backseat of his car without any major problems. He hugs her and kisses her on the cheek, and her hands linger on his body for a little longer than the hug lasts. He tries not to read too much into that, because therein lies another irony: The only time that she allows him to stand so close and hold her so much has turned out to be the only time that he's _not _actively trying to hit on her. It's funny how that works out.

He'd chosen the backseat because it affords more privacy, and it turns out to be a wise choice. Her anxiety inclines sharply at the first stoplight and turns into a panic attack at the third stoplight. He blows through the fourth one and she doesn't show any signs of calming down until the fifth, but by the time they reach his apartment, he has to extricate her from the tiny little space between the floorboard and the back of the passenger-side seat, anyway. He finds himself too highly strung to stay and talk her through her tears, so he just picks her up and carries her the whole way up to his apartment, trying hard not to drop her as he deals with everything; _every single thing._

xoxo

He has no idea why the team decides that some hustle and bustle is needed in his home, but for the rest of the day, that is the condition in which his apartment remains— after delivering the one mattress that he is to keep because he has no other bed, the team stays to help him clean and rearrange. Even Ziva helps, although he senses a slight amount of uncertainty in her.

It is only late after dinner, when their friends have gone home, that he gets to find out the source of her hesitance. He comes out from his shower to find her curled up on his couch, managing to look both bored and lost at the same time; turning on the television, he says, "Hey. The TV works, y'know."

She eyes the television. "I guessed," she whispers, and he settles down next to her and pulls her to him, brushing her hair from her face.

"What's going on?"

She chews on her bottom lip. "I need to know … what the boundaries are." He tenses, mindful that he has one hand on her waist and another practically tangled intimately in her hair, and she looks up anxiously at him. "I will not take up too much space of yours, I promise. I will not touch your things…"

_Oh. _That _kind of boundaries._

He relaxes and tugs playfully on her brown strands. "No boundaries here, Ziva. What's the saying, '_Mi casa es su casa_'? No, that's not right; that's for _usted. _'_Mi casa es tu casa._' If you ask me, that just sounds weird, but eh."

She smiles at his pathetic attempt at humour. "But I'm just your guest."

"No, you're not. You _moved in; _you're not here for a weekend stay. Even if you were, you used to walk around my apartment and leave your crap _everywhere, _anyway. What changed?"

She lowers her eyes. _A lot of things changed, _he realizes, and it's been a long while since she's even attempted to make any of his space hers. But he says nothing, and she looks at him again eventually. "I am not paying rent," she answers. "And I am not working for you. You are paying for my … my expenses, and your utility bills will be higher, and the only things you are not paying for on my behalf are my food and that mattress you say you will be sleeping on in order to make space for me on the bed, even though it is a king-sized bed and the mattress is only a twin. I should not even be your guest, because I do not deser—"

He manages to make it that far before he presses a finger to her lips, cutting off her sentence. "You deserve way, way more, Ziva. Don't even think otherwise."

"_Why?_" she asks him when he drops his finger, her tone pleading him to understand. "What did I do to deserve this?"

He shifts in his seat. "You're _you, _Ziva, and that's enough for me."

"It should not be. I am not even the 'me' I—"

"Zi, listen." He grabs hold of her fingers. "Don't get caught up in this, okay? The truth is that I couldn't bear it if you spent your days just trying to look like another piece of furniture in my apartment. Because you're _not. _You're—… when I asked you to move in, I thought about this, and I decided that _yes, _I could pay for your expenses, I could pay for that tiny bit of extra to my utility bills, and I wanted to. Because I … I care about you and I want you to be well and happy. I want you to have a place to come home to."

Her lips curl into a sneer, and his heart falls until she speaks again and he realizes that the derision isn't directed towards him. "I cannot even _leave _your apartment, Tony. Do you really want me here, day in and day out, always being in your way and acting like this is _my _apartment even though I have done _nothing _to contribute to it?"

He breathes out and presses his face into her hair. "You helped clean this afternoon."

"That was barely anything."

"That was what you could do, and you did it, and I am so proud of you for it."

"For cleaning?" she asks incredulously.

"Yeah." He tilts his head and entwines his fingers with hers. "Because you could've said, 'Hey, I don't wanna do anything. Let me just sit here.' But you didn't."

"I would never have said that."

"I know." He squeezes her hand. "And that's what makes you _you. _That's what tells me you're worth everything, every fight, every bit of help I can give you."

"The fact that I am not willing to sit by and watch as people do what _I _should have done on my own?" She sounds dazed.

"Yeah. There are hundreds of different responses you could have given, Zi, and you chose to give the one that would help us; that would give us less things to do. That would contribute. And I know that they say actions speak louder than words, but…" He lifts his head to look at her. "Sometimes thought is as important as action. You're one of those people, Ziva, who would do _anything you could _to make a situation better, safer, _happier_ for everyone. You did what you could today. I see that. Maybe it doesn't feel like a lot to you right now, but I know there will come a time when you'll look back and realize how _extraordinary _you are for putting that much effort into things. That's why I wanna do what Ican to keep you safe and happy. Because you're worth everythingI can do for you until that day comes."

For all his love and admiration for her, he still finds complimenting someone, anyone, hard—it requires a sort of vulnerability that it terrifies him to possess. He feels horribly bare and painful when he finishes his long speech, sincere though it may be. She stares at him with shiny eyes and an expression that can only be described as 'dumbfounded,' and he chews on his lip as he fervently prays that she responds soon, in whatever manner she cares to, just so that he won't have to walk away defeated with the knowledge that he has failed in his quest to do something right by her, _again._

It doesn't help when her eyes only grow shinier and she whispers in a small voice, "Extraordinary?"

He purses his lips and nods bravely, but can't find the courage in himself to repeat the word twice. He is almost choking in his attempt to rein in the need to tell her how much she means to him when she suddenly brushes at her eyes and then buries her face into his neck, her thin arm coming up to wrap itself around his waist. "Okay, Zi?" he asks, his heart thumping as he rubs her back, and she nods.

"Thank you, Tony," she chokes out haltingly, stunning him into stillness when she resurfaces to press a kiss to his jaw. "Thank you."

She doesn't say anything more, attempt to get any closer, or even look at him again, but his jaw tingles—in the good way—and he is absolutely certain that his beam stretches from one ear to another as he brushes his lips against her temple.

It feels like he's done something right, for once.

* * *

**This is not one of my favourite chapters, but I suppose it is needed to mark the transition from one part of the story to the next, so... :P**

**_Mi casa es su/tu casa _- "My house is your house." Make yourself at home, basically. _Usted _is the subject pronoun for the formal "you" in Spanish; _tú _is the subject pronoun for the informal (y'know, friendly, etc.) "you."  
**

**Please review; thank you for reading!**

**-_Soph_**


	21. Chapter Twenty-One

**So ... this chapter deals with gender equality, in a way, in that Ziva questions the significance of her dependence as a woman on Tony, a man. It is not, however, meant to be a discourse on sexism, because that was never the crux off the issue in this fic; this topic comes up only because Ziva (the woman) happened to be the one who was sent to Somalia and found after months of being tortured. Having grown up in a very aggression-oriented world and having probably met many chauvinistic (and not in the way Ducky says he and Gibbs are) men while doing work for Mossad means that Ziva _might _have a skewed idea of gender equality, where her long-term reliance on Tony might be interpreted as losing her power as a woman, no matter the circumstance; this is my take on it.**

**P.S. Yes, I am aware that gender equality is important and enforced to a reasonable extent in Israel, but in this case, all views are Ziva's own.**

**Enjoy; please review!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-One**

She doesn't say a word that night when he leaves the bed to her and takes the mattress next to it on the floor; only nods uncertainly and climbs awkwardly into his bed.

He manages to make it to half an hour before his knowledge that her breathing hasn't evened out into peaceful sleep becomes insuppressible and he has to sit up and peer at her face. He frowns when he does, hoping that those aren't tears he sees reflecting the faint moonlight. "Is the bed too soft?" he asks quietly, and she shakes her head mutely. He strokes her hair. "Can't sleep?"

A single drop of liquid rolls out of the corner of her eye, dotting his pillow. "It would be in bad form to share with you my thoughts."

"Why?"

"Because you have done so much for me."

"Hey, you never have to explain the need to talk to me, remember?" he asks, but still she stubbornly keeps her mouth shut. He sighs and rubs her cheek. "Zi, don't do this. What's wrong?"

"You aren't doing anything wrong, I promise."

"That's reassuring, but it's not what I asked."

"I don't know…" she starts thickly, "How to give you the answer to what you asked."

"We could just talk, like we've been doing so far."

"I am not a princess," she blurts out, and he blinks, taken aback.

"I know, Zi. I never said you were."

"I should not need to be protected by a man…" she says regardless, sounding so unsure that he hears an unspoken _Right? _at the end. He opens his mouth, completely and utterly bemused by her sudden wish to be left vulnerable by him, but she continues, "I should be able to stand on my own two feet."

"Zi, everyone needs help sometimes. It's nothing to do with—"

"I know, but … that's different from what you give me."

He furrows his eyebrows in confusion. "So what I give you doesn't help?"

She wipes at her eyes. "It does. But I—… you _protect _me. And I should not be _protected._"

"You don't want to be protected?"

"No," she replies firmly, sounding so much like her old self that he gets it.

"Oh, Zi." He sighs heavily and rubs his face. She wraps her fingers around his wrist.

"If it were a year ago and I needed a place to stay, you would have let me sleep on the mattress even though I'm a woman," she says quietly. "Right? You would never have thought of giving me special treatment, because I do not need special treatment. I would simply have … I would have complained and made you make a space for me on your bed, even though that would have annoyed you." Her breath catches at that, and she drops his hand as if she's been burnt. "I would not have minded making you annoyed with me."

"Do you mind making me annoyed now?" he asks sombrely, suspecting that there are unspoken words in her sentence.

"Yes," she answers, shame colouring her tone.

He watches as she turns her face away from him and her back to him and tries to withdraw into herself. He doesn't know what to do or say. Of all the ways in which he'd expected her to assert her wish for independence, admitting to not having it—and feeling inferior as a _woman _for that, no less—certainly hadn't been one of the scenarios he'd included; Ziva, after all, still has a fiery spirit that tends to appear unpredictably. He'd been expecting her to push him away gradually or even to yell at him until he backed off, but now…?

He feels anxiety run cold through him. Everything is too sudden, and he isn't prepared for this eventuality; he hadn't at all considered gender to be an issue that they would need to discuss.

Gingerly, though, he lays a hand on her arm. A slight twitch of her body is the only indication that she's even felt it at all, so he leans forward and carefully admits, "To tell you the truth, I'm afraid of making you mad, too."

Her scoff is muffled, but distinctly sceptical. "You are not."

"I am." He pauses. "Ziva … I can't … I can't say that I'm afraid of you physically hurting me now, and I'm sorry. But that doesn't mean that the idea of having you pissed at me doesn't scare the _hell _outta me."

She sniffles. "Why would it?"

"Because I care about you," he confesses, hating that he's now said that twice in a day. "And that means I care about what you think. I like being in your good graces, y'know?"

"You could still do without my approval."

"You could do without mine, too."

She shakes her head vehemently, never looking back, and Ducky's words from many a night ago strike him. _She is relying on you to be that strength for her. _He swallows back guilty tears, not knowing what to say and how to rectify a situation that cannot possibly be his fault. _Right?_

And then, haltingly, she speaks again. "I am afraid. If I do not have your approval or…. You like to hug me, but the truth is that I … I have gotten used to it, and it shouldn't be this way. I should be able to step outside without your helping me, or deal with my own emotions by myself, or at least leave this bed to you, its rightful owner. Because I am _not a princess. _I should not need _men _to have to bend over backwards for me. I should not be feeling saf—" She clamps her mouth shut just then, not uttering a single sound more, but he hears her message as loudly and clearly as if she'd said the whole word, anyway.

He rubs her arm, wishing she'd just look at him. "Zi, if I were a woman, and please don't make me say that again—would this even be an issue?"

"No," she whispers, sounding tearful.

"Then why…?"

"Because it feels different. I feel weak for relying on you to feel safe; I feel like I am depending on a _man._" He hears the strain in her voice, and another guilty pang runs through his heart.

"I can't change who I am."

"I know. It is not—it is not you, Tony." _Ah, the _other _four most popular words. _"I just … should not rely on you so much, yes?"

"I never thought that you were relying on me because you were a woman."

Another sniffle. "No?"

"No. God, Zi, the thought never even crossed my mind. I never came home and thought, 'Ah, well, here's another chick for me to treat like my pet.' I thought … I thought I was helping you."

He doesn't know whether he finds it more painful or more of a relief when she finally rolls onto her back to look at him, her face a study in inner conflict. Gently, she touches her fingers to his cheek. "I did not mean to sound ungrateful," she murmurs hoarsely, and he catches hold of her fingers.

"I never thought you did. But I don't understand. I mean, what…?"

She closes her eyes, swallowing as another tear rolls onto the pillowcase. "I did not use to be … _this _woman. I mean, you knew me, Tony. I needed help sometimes, but I could pick my own fights and I could fight them well." Her sad eyes peer at him. "I was strong, and now I am leaning on you and I don't know what to do. I mean, it is not you. You are a good man, Tony, I promise. I swear you are a good ma—"

She stops when he squeezes her hand, and he breathes out heavily before speaking. "Y'know how you sometimes tell me that I'm a good man or you say something nice?" She nods slowly, her eyes puzzled. "Well, it matters to me. I mean, I know you and McGee rag on me a lot and I rag on you guys even more, but the compliments really matter. I count on what you do and what you say to know that I haven't screwed up, Zi. And you say I'd be fine without your approval, and I _would _be—as in, I'd still be able to do my job and everything—but that doesn't mean I don't practically _live _for the moments when you think well on me. And that has nothing to do with whether you're a woman. _This _has nothing to do with whether you're a woman. It has to do with _you, _because you matter to me_._ I don't know if—if maybe Gibbs being here or McGee being here would make any difference to you, but I thought _I _was helping you. Not me as a man. Just _me._"

Suddenly discouraged, he backs away from her and leans heavily against the wall behind him. He had really hoped that his support would help her; would let her believe in herself again. He feels her eyes on him, but can't bring himself to look at her—her words feel more like accusations of his overshadowing her than anything else, and he had never in a million years hoped to overshadow her. As gentlemanly as he may _try _to be, he's never really subscribed to the belief that women need his protection or can't do without his help; of course, in a situation of danger, women and children might take priority for him, but … surely there has to be a difference between doing wrongly by a woman and trying to do rightly as a man?

"I'm sorry," she whispers, and he waves a hand without looking at her. _Ziva doesn't apologize, _he tells himself. Ziva is the epitome of a powerful woman, strong and independent and beautiful because she is so. Hell, he'd probably fallen in love with her for that reason. His whole life has been filled with powerful women: His mum, his university lecturers, his cop colleagues, Wendy, Kate, Paula, Jeanne, Jenny … and he's celebrated them, respected them, loved them all because they are powerful and not afraid to be so. Ziva should _know _this. There's never been a woman he's looked up to more or felt intimidated by more than her, and….

He's about to lie down again and pretend to go to sleep when her soft body collides into him, apparently having clambered out of bed while he hadn't been paying attention. When she wraps her arms tightly around his and presses her face into the crook of his neck, he can't help but to bring his own arms up and around her; superiority complex or—hopefully—not, there's never been a time when he's able to reject her if she's holding onto him that tightly.

He sighs and strokes her hair. "Do you want the mattress?" he asks unenthusiastically, and she shakes her head.

"I'm sorry," she just says again.

"For what?" he asks, because it's important to know if she isn't apologizing for the wrong things.

"For having hurt you," she answers, and he relaxes the tiniest bit. That sounds closer to the right reason … he hopes. And then she speaks again. "It's not that I think you are … stifling me. It is simply that I—I need a lot of help now; I need a lot of your help, and I do not know how to deal with that. I have always done things on my own, Tony."

"There's nothing wrong with making use of what you have," he answers flatly.

"But what if I never learn to…" she falls silent, her chest heaving once, and his breath catches in his throat as he pulls her closer.

"I don't think that will happen."

"No?" she asks, her voice laced with uncertainty.

"No," he replies simply. "You'd never let it get that far, Zi. I mean, after what you _just _told me, do you really think that you'd one day just forget how to fight for your independence?"

"I don't know," she whispers, so softly that he almost doesn't hear her.

"Well, _I _know you won't." That makes her tear-streaked face look tentatively up at him. "I see your strength all the time. Last week when I couldn't even go near you enough to comfort you, and the whole soup kitchen thing … you did everything by yourself, Zi, and you did them just fine. That was you, being independent. I mean, why would you even _think…?_"

She wipes her cheek. "But in the end, on Sunday…"

"On Sunday, you'd had a rough week and realized that you could do with a couple of hugs. That doesn't mean you depend on me to function." She doesn't reply, but he can tell that she's listening. "Sometimes I need a couple hugs from you, too, when I've had a rough day or whatever. And I don't think it makes me less of a man. Maybe it's a big hit to my damn ego, but I'd just like to know that…" He struggles. "I'd just like to feel welcomed, for once."

Her arms tighten subtly around his torso, but she still doesn't speak, so he continues, "I mean, how do you equate…" _How do you equate wanting to be comforted by someone with being dependent on someone?_

She looks away in shame again, seemingly having heard his words. "I've never actively sought out support for what I do."

"Ziva, we all need support sometimes. Even you."

She jerks her arms away from him, curling into herself again. "I should be able to rely on myself."

"You _are _able to." She looks up, apparently surprised by his words, so he continues, "Zi, when you're walking out to the tree back at the old place, that's _your _strength. When you're cooking for the soup kitchen, that's _your _commitment. This, right now, wanting to rely on yourself rather than on me—these are _your _thoughts. You're already a strong woman, because you make these choices to get _yourself _to where you want to be. And maybe … maybe my being here makes you feel safer, but you still choose to want to be independent from me. Don't dismiss that. The little things _matter,_ Zi. If you weren't telling yourself right now that you wanted less of my help, then you wouldn't be asking yourself in the future what you could do to get there."

She brushes her cheek. "I guess so."

"Zi…" he murmurs imploringly. "I can't just … _not _protect you in the interests of equality. Because it hurts me to see you scared or in pain. I can't just say, 'Let her do everything herself; it'll make her a stronger woman,' because it hurts me to see you struggle, and I don't want you to think that you don't have anyone to go to. I mean, this … this doesn't even have anything to do with whether you're a woman; I just need you to know that I'd be here if you needed help." She nods reluctantly, another tear escaping down her cheek. "I'm not _trying _to get you to rely on me. You know? I'm just … wanting to do right by you, here."

"I have to try…" She clears her throat. "I have to try to do things on my own, Tony."

"Then try," he tells her softly. "And I'll be the first to cheer you on. God forbid that I should try and stop you. I just want to be your hug-dispensing-type person."

The desperate joke makes her laugh, albeit in a tearful manner, and she hesitates before shifting forward into his arms once more. "I'm sorry, Tony."

"For what?"

"For making a big deal out of things."

"Hey." He lifts her chin gently. "This _is _a big deal. I mean, I get it. I get needing your own space and needing to know that things haven't changed. And just … I told you. We can _always _talk."

The flicker on her face is barely a smile, but she does nod and lean her head against his shoulder. "I know. Thank you."

He presses a warm kiss to her forehead. "Always, Zi."


	22. Chapter Twenty-Two

**Warning: F-word in there :P in the story narration, not the dialogue, but unless you like reading conversations without context, the warning is probably needed, anyway. Oh, and there's also one other swear word :P I'm getting quite the potty mouth, aren't I?**

**Also, swear words aside, I hope this chapter isn't too weird :/ I'm not used to writing such ... complicated stuff.**

**Enjoy...? Enjoy :P**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-Two**

The talk causes a rift between them.

He honestly wishes he could say that she'd been understanding enough and he'd been empathetic enough for them to have returned to the point they'd been at before their conversation. But—somehow—despite the fact that their conversation had ended on a good note and they'd fallen asleep without further comment, he wakes up feeling resentful and she wakes up acting aloof.

Sunday passes in a haze of awkwardness in which she flinches whenever he nears her, leading him to give her a wide berth and try not to look too hurt at her decreasing trust. He'd never thought there'd be a time when she'd be afraid of him not because he didn't protect her enough, but because he protected her too much—and yet, there it is. At bedtime, she tells him to take the bed. He asks her, in a tone a little too caustic to be reasonable, whether she's ever considered that he gives her the bed because she's his guest, not because she's a woman. She turns the tables on him by responding that the definition of 'guest' implies special treatment, anyway, and that she does not wish to rehash the previous night's argument.

Because the only alternative is to fight with her until the sun comes up, and he does not want that, he takes the bed.

The second morning is only frostier than the first. He skips the now almost habitual practice he has of kissing her forehead and reassuring her that he'll be back at the end of the day; even though something deep in him aches at that, he feels less guilty than he thinks he should. Ziva, after all, looks like she'd rather have an entire bowl of mercury and then follow it with cyanide than accept a kiss from him.

There is dinner waiting for them when he comes home, though. He sits opposite her at the dinner table and wonders what that says about their whole dysfunctional non-relationship.

On the morning of their fourth day (because, really, their third day is the repeat of their second), he wakes up to discover her asleep in a seated position on his couch, her arms wrapped around herself and her head pressed into the back cushions. That quite stuns him, as he is certain she'd gone to bed on the mattress in his bedroom the previous night. He nudges her awake, though, and tells her to go and sleep in his bedroom since he's up for the day and won't be anywhere near her for many hours. She doesn't look at him when she does what he says.

xoxo

He sees her get up on the fourth night. He only realizes it because he's awake and watching for it—ninjas have ninja skills, no matter what they've been through, and some things like moving in silence have been so deeply ingrained into Ziva that she doesn't even need to try being quiet to make sure he doesn't hear her. He gives her as many minutes as he can bear to before he gets up and follows the path she'd taken into the living room, only to find her in the exact same spot she'd been in the night before—except that, this time, she's awake and crying.

His first instinct is that of immediately reaching out to her. Arms extended before he's even sat down, he freezes halfway, realizing that he's somehow of late lost himself the privilege of holding her. He straightens up and his arms flop down to his sides, and she brushes at her cheeks pointlessly.

"Go back to bed, Tony," she tells him.

"And leave you out here crying alone? Are you going to do this every night?" he asks sharply.

"Yes. For as long as I need to."

"What, is this some kind of _assassin _training? 'Cry yourself into emotionlessness'?"

She glares at him. "Is that what you are saying I am?"

"No, but it looks like what you're trying to do." She dips her head and doesn't answer him. "I told you we could always talk. I told you last week, and I told you the week before that, and I'd tell you again except ever since you told me to back off, you have been acting like all communication between us has to stop as well. Help me out here, 'cause I'm trying to understand: Does 'no dependence' mean 'no interaction' as well? 'Cause then, I might as well give up all efforts and let you live in your own little bubble."

"Please don't do that."

"Then _give _me something to work with here. Will you at least tell me, please, why you're crying right now?"

"I miss you." Her words send a jolt through his heart that has him reeling, but then anger seeps through the shock and makes everything feel a hundred times worse than before.

"You miss me," he repeats incredulously. "You _miss _me." _I've been fucking right here all along._

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Mock me. This is hard for me."

Sighing, he runs his hands through his hair. "I'm going to go back to bed now," he tells her. "You could join me if you want, but it's up to you. Just so you know, I'm always up for talking. And yeah, I know we've a hell of a _shitty _record when it comes to talking, especially about things like this, but I was trying to change that." _Unlike you._

Stiffly, he turns away.

Strangely enough, having gained the upper hand in their little pity party doesn't make him feel any better.

xoxo

He is lying flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling and trying to pretend that there isn't a weight in his heart when Ziva comes into the room and climbs onto the bed to lie above the covers beside him.

"Can we talk?" she asks, and he answers unconcernedly in the affirmative. She still doesn't speak, so he rolls onto his side and lifts himself to look down at her. Her eyes shine with tears as they focus on a spot somewhere behind his head.

"Ziva," he answers more gently, his anger dissipating, "we can talk."

"It is not … not that I don't want you to touch me or talk to me anymore," she blurts out. "It is simply that I no longer know what those things mean for my independence."

"Ziva, I told you—"

"I know." Her eyes seem to plead him to understand. "I know you will let me go if I ask you to and only be there when I need you to be. This is not about you, Tony. This is about me—what if I decide that I am able to step outside or buy groceries or get a job on my own, only to find out that I cannot do it without you physically by my side?"

"I am almost _never _physically by your side, and you do fine without me. What makes you think it'd be any different in the outside world?"

She grimaces oddly. "Because I have you when you come home, and that makes things seem okay in the end. But what if … what if I moved out, and—"

She stops mid-sentence, looking at him in a manner that makes him think his hurt might be showing.

"Is that what you've been thinking about?" he asks hoarsely, and it _has _to be ridiculous that the idea feels so painful even though she's only been living with him for four days (and has been staying away from him for almost as long). Suddenly, he thinks that he might give up his knight-in-shining-armour idealism, if only she stayed. _One more day, please._

"Not really," she answers quietly. "But I know that I cannot stay with you forever, Tony. You have to know that, too."

"_Why not?_" he demands, pretending that he _hadn't _known that.

"Because I need to be able to stand on my own two feet eventually. I am not paying you, Tony; I cannot expect you to house me forever."

"What if I _want _to?"

"You want to now—I know that. And I am _so _thankful for that." His skin tingles when she lifts her fingers to skim lightly across his collarbone. "But eventually you will find someone whom you will want to live with and start a family with, and I will only be in your way."

_What if I want that someone to be you?_

He never gets to push himself into asking that question, though, because she's speaking again. "And even if … even if you did not, I cannot be the woman that you have to keep in your house for fifty years because she cannot be bothered to look for her own apartment. I cannot be a burden to you."

"You're not a burden to me."

"Yes, I am." She swallows. "And a year down the line, you will realize that you do not want me to always be here, doing nothing. You will realize that you did not sign up for this, for helping me, and I don't want to wait until that moment for you to kick me ou—"

"Ziva, don't talk like this. I would _never _kick you out. And yeah, I never signed up to see you hurt like this, but—"

Her hand migrates to his cheek. "You need to be happy."

"I _am _happy."

She drops her hand and shakes her head vehemently. "You need to be _truly _happy. Not worrying about whether I need medication or whether I'm going to starve myself to death or whether I will get another panic attack once I set both of my feet outside the door."

"You're not _trying _to do those things, Zi. And … what makes you think I'm not _truly _happy being here with you?"

"How can you be?" She gives him a sad smile. "How can you tell me that you like coming home to see me in tears, or that you like spending weekends just taking care of me? What about your life, huh? What about your movies or your 'college buddies' or … just some woman from some bar? How can you like sacrificing your lifestyle when I can give you back nothing in return?"

"Zi, it's not a sacrifice."

"It is. Even if you do not want to think so … you have had to make space and make time for me, and that means it's a sacrifice."

"Even if it is, I did it because I _wanted _to."

"It's not about what you want or what you would let me get away with. Yes, perhaps you would let me stay because you cared. But I cannot take advantage of that and tell myself that I do not need to work towards being on my own because I have you to provide a home for me. A part of being independent is knowing that I have the principles to go along with it. I do want to stay here, Tony, but I know that if it is not for the right reason, then I shouldn't stay."

"What's the right reason?" he asks, feeling defeated.

She gives him a watery smile. "I don't know. But I do know that … if I have decided to be independent, then I can't go about it in a halfway manner."

"Even if I want you to stay?" Her head makes a single, tiny nodding movement against the pillow. "Don't my wishes count for anything in this?"

"Tony, why do you want me to stay?"

_Because I'm in love with you, _he wants to tell her. But judging by the expression on her face, she already knows that, and the question she asks is merely rhetorical.

"Do you not think," she continues when he doesn't speak, "that you deserve the same kind of courtesy from me?"

He wipes his mouth. "I don't know," he answers shakily.

She raises her hand to his cheek again, running a thumb along his cheekbone. "I want to know that if I stay, it is for the same reason that you want me to stay."

He glances away. "What happens if you move out?"

She makes an odd gasping noise. "We will still be friends."

"You don't sound like you think that," he replies, and she stays silent. His hand trembles when he reaches out to brush a lock of hair from her face. He wants to ask her to stay in bed with him; hold him, maybe, but he doesn't dare to ask. She's unattainable now, just like she'd been before Somalia.

It's time for him to disengage from her.

When she rubs his arm, he has to look away again because the emotion tearing through him feels too much like heartbreak.


	23. Chapter Twenty-Three

**Surprise, surprise! :D I'm publishing on Friday instead of Saturday! Why am I publishing on Friday instead of Saturday, you ask? Well, because I've FINISHED WRITING THE STORY. Don't get me wrong, I loved writing this fic; but the relief of having nothing to write is by itself quite a rush, lol. Anyway, from now on, I'll be updating twice a week, so keep your eyes peeled!**

**Two warnings: From here on out, the story gets fluffier, but also more intense and angsty and gritty. It's by no means the scariest thing you'll ever have read (because I'm about as scary as a bunny rabbit _nom_ing on a carrot), but I just thought I'd warn you all the same.**

**The second warning is for Tiva shippers :P they do not get together by the end of the fic. There, I said it. They certainly won't be as distant as they are in the first half of this chapter, and there are even hopeful hints, but _they do not get together at the end of the fic and if you wouldn't like your wishful thinking to be drawn out for longer, this is a good last chapter, lol._**

**The last chapter of the fic, btw, is Chapter Thirty-Five.**

**Enjoy!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-Three**

For the next six days, Tony and Ziva avoid spending time with each other as much as possible. Tony goes to work every morning—save during the weekend—before Ziva's even risen, but he knows that the mistiming in routines is actually a deliberate move on her part. She's never not gotten up with him before.

The part of him that loves comedy finds the situation strangely humorous. Perhaps the way things are going could be a grotesquely twisted look into what their hypothetical life together, as a couple, would undoubtedly be like; it would be inevitable that two people who argued with each other as much as they once had—and probably would again—could remain in a balanced, loving, harmonious relationship for long. But it doesn't matter. None of it matters, because he will never get a chance now: She may've said that she doesn't know how she feels about him, but one need not be the sharpest knife in the drawer to conclude that how they are right now will lead to nothing except the end before anything has begun.

He can't blame her. He refuses to blame her at all, in fact. Still, that doesn't mean the distance between them doesn't hurt him a whole lot. She had used to save for him a sample of whatever she had cooked for the soup kitchen for the day, and the extinction of the ritual speaks volumes to him about how far they've grown in just a mere six days. The weekend feels strange when she retreats to the living room to read (ironically, the first time she's properly picked up a book since she last read to him) and he stays in his bedroom, watching movies on his widescreen TV. On Sunday morning though, she—inexplicably—walks into his room, gives him a hug so tight it almost suffocates him, and walks out again.

He is pondering the hug-that-had-made-his-throat-close-up on late Tuesday night when his voice betrays him and he whispers "So, when do you leave?" as if he expects her to already have a definitive date and time, and a one-way ticket away from him to boot; he doesn't, if truth be told, but the thought still strikes him in the middle of the night sometimes and tightens around his heart with its iron grip.

When the covers suddenly shift, he jumps a little, because he'd thought she'd been asleep and hadn't even noticed her get up. She slides under the blankets, moving closer to him and resting a hand on his chest. "I don't know," she answers in a voice that tears him apart as much as it comforts him.

"Don't go," he blurts out.

"I'm not going right now. But I have to go eventually."

He laughs bitterly. "Is that what you're preparing for right now?"

"What do you mean?"

"You don't talk to me anymore. Or do anything with me. Or even look at me."

"I do not," she agrees quietly. "But I just … do not know how to act anymore."

"Yeah." He lifts her hand from his chest and lays it on the mattress, ignoring her sharp intake of breath and turning away from her onto his side.

"Does this mean you are mad at me until I figure out what I'm doing here?" she questions, her voice sounding overly level.

"I don't want you to think that I'm not on your side, Ziva." She doesn't answer, so he turns back to her and gathers her into his arms when he finds tears glittering in her eyes. He kisses her hair before admitting, "I miss you, too."

She turns her cheek into his shoulder. "You do?" she asks, sounding perilously close to tears.

"Yeah. I _am _happy doing this for you. Maybe you don't think so, but I am."

"All the same—"

"All the same, you gotta find your independence anyway," he finishes flatly. "I just don't understand why it has to be so all-or-nothing with you."

"Is it not the same with you?" she questions, sounding a little hurt. "If you'd lost every sense of who you were, would you not want to find yourself before you found … what someone else meant to you?"

"Do I mean anything to you?" he challenges, leaving out the _anyway _at the end of the sentence.

She sniffles. "I don't know."

"Maybe it's all the same anyway, finding yourself and finding someone else," he suggests humourlessly. It's more himself than her that he's now referring to, but she doesn't have to know that.

She laughs tearfully. "That is only what every trashy romance novel on the market says."

"I would've thought you liked those, considering you asked me about soul mates, anyway." Silence meets his cutting remark, and he feels his cheeks heat at having lost the battle to his temper. "I'm sorry, Ziva. It's just I … almost lost you, y'know? I almost lost you for good, and it was like someone had stolen a part of me. And then … never mind. It doesn't matter."

"Tony, what…?" She raises her head the tiniest bit.

"It's just maybe our loved ones make a little bit of who we are." The words are out before he can censor them, and he almost chokes on his tongue in his haste to rectify them. "But y'know, that's just crap. And I'm not saying that you lov—"

"Tony, it's not crap," she interrupts before he can dig the hole deeper for himself. "But I cannot let you be _all _of me no matter how I feel about you."

He doesn't answer, because he knows it to be true and because he knows that to ask if _none _of him could be in her life would be childish and a little too much to expect, given that he'd landed her in this situation in the first place. He'd once been a great part of her life. She'd once even regarded him as someone who could have been more than a friend, he knew, and it was by his own callous rejection that she'd eventually moved further away from him. If she were to cut him completely out of her life now, he'd have no one to pin the blame on except himself.

The feeling of her hand lightly stroking his cheek brings him out of his thoughts. He looks down to find her eyes sad; her hand then gently cups his cheek, causing his skin to warm. "What is really the matter?" she asks, and his heart thuds painfully.

He gives her a tiny smile, all faked confidence that is meant to throw her off the track. "What makes you think it's not just my ego pissed because I want make up all of who you are?" he challenges.

Her eyebrows twitch in a way that suggests she's trying not to roll her eyes. "Because that's not you," she answers with tenderness that defies her exasperation, and it's ultimately what makes him tear up rapidly.

"Stay tonight," he rasps out. "Here in bed, I mean. Please, Ziva."

She stares, looking confused and troubled, at him; but he can't bring himself to care. He knows she will not do it if he does not ask, and there may've once been a time when he would've done anything in his power to make sure that he did not ask, but his self-control possess no such strength this night. Tonight, he just _needs her. _Needs to feel her breath on him; her skin pressed against his; her smell, her presence, all around him. Even if it's inappropriate and more than a little melodramatic, he feels as if his sanity in the morning hangs solely on her simple decision, because for her to refuse would be for the largest wedge thus far to be driven into their already-fracturing relationship.

After an eternity, she nods and slips an arm around his waist without meeting his eyes. He lets go of the breath he's been holding, even though his stomach turns with the guilt that he may just have forced her hand without actually meaning to by making her stay beside him. But then, her hand strokes his side and her lips lightly graze his collarbone, and he shudders as he buries his face into her hair.

"It is okay," she whispers softly. "What's the saying? 'I got you,' yes? I got you, Tony. You will be okay."

xoxo

She makes him breakfast the next morning.

To be accurate, it's only toast and coffee, but the toast comes with his favourite jam and the coffee looks like it might have just the right amount of sweetness to it, and that is what makes him feel conflicted as she places breakfast at the table, all perfect and so domestic that he stares at her until she clears her throat and looks away.

"It is a peace offering," she explains, avoiding his eyes but sitting down before her own breakfast. "I am sorry I hurt you."

"You didn't hurt me," he answers on autopilot, and she raises her eyebrows. He amends, "Not on purpose."

She shrugs and gives him a tiny smile. "All the same … I would like to be friends again, Tony."

And his throat closes up once more. _Damnit. _"Friends?" he croaks hopefully. _Not just roommates or helper and person-who-is-about-to-move-out? Not enemies? Not hopeless? Not shattered beyond belief?_

"We were good," she continues, her voice jerky and seeming to break, too. "Before everything. There was a time when … I mean, we flirted a lot and were jealous a lot, but we were good friends. We worked well together. We made a good team."

"We were best friends," he corrects softly, and surprise crosses her features. He bites his lip. "Okay, so maybe it was a long time ago and only for a summer, but you were mine … y'know, for a while. Even over McGee."

"What happened after that summer?" she asks, seeming genuinely taken aback by his confession.

"I betrayed my best friend for a case," he says, guilt flooding his body. "Because I'm not the kind of guy who manages to keep friends for too long."

"Tony, no," Ziva whispers, and he doesn't know who is more horrified by the abrupt change in mood and topic. He is about to apologize profusely for spoiling the atmosphere when she pushes back her chair and he finds himself in her arms once more, warm and undeservedly comforted.

"I'm sorry, Ziva."

"I do not blame you," she answers. "It was a case, and you did what you had to do. I would have done the same thing."

"You would not. You would never have screwed over your best friend."

She neither confirms nor denies it. "It does not matter. I do not blame you, Tony. You _must remember that._"

_What if I blame myself? _he wants to ask, but he knows that this is not the right time to talk about Jeanne Benoit. So, he takes a deep breath and wraps his own arms around her, seeking her embrace for a moment more before tapping her on the forearm. She takes the cue for what it is and lets go of him, returning to her own chair.

He shoots her a too-bright smile. "So. Friends, huh."

"That is the plan." She hesitates. "I am not very good at forming productive bonds, Tony. I have never been supportive the way McGee is, or unreservedly loving like Abby, or even strong and dependable like Gibbs. And even though we were _good _as co-workers, when we fell apart, we could also fall apart spectacularly because we just did not know how not to. But I don't want that anymore." Her brown eyes, alight with earnestness and determination, hold his. "I don't want to fall apart anymore. We have done that enough, Tony."

Her confident air is suddenly gone when she drops her eyes and fidgets, her cheeks slowly growing pink. "That is what I told myself last night after you fell asleep," she continues, more softly now. "If I want to make a change, if I want to be independent, then I need to decide by myself where I want things to stand with you rather than let my confusion lead me. Because otherwise, I might end up where I regret. I don't want to lose you, Tony. So, I choose this. I choose to try my best to be your friend."

The last sentence is spoken nervously and in so un-Ziva-like a way that he gapes, unsure if he's more thrown off by her words or her manner of speech. But when her blush deepens, he closes his mouth. Whether or not it is typical of her, he knows of the courage it must have taken her to make such a decision and then inform him of it; it has always, _always _been easier for them to follow orders and end up in discontentment where life dictates them or else blunder along and mess up irreparably if they attempt to go against the flow. He knows it would have been easier for her to remain decision-less even if that would've hurt him, because not making a decision would've been the less risky option for her. But for _him,_ for _them,_ she hadn't chosen the easier option—and God, but did he love her for her strength.

So, he reaches across the table to squeeze her hand once and asks, "Being friends means there's some sort of _quid pro quo _thing where I get to make you peace offerings for breakfast tomorrow, right?"

When her joyful laughter erupts in the air, he knows she's recognized his acceptance and choice to forge a stronger bond of friendship with her for what they are.


	24. Chapter Twenty-Four

**Lookie, lookie, a fresh chapter! :D**

**In all honesty, I'm updating this soon because I have an apology to make to a couple of reviewers from the previous chapter, haha.**

**To _mishka _and my other anonymous reviewer: I'm sorry I spoilt the ending for you guys. It was not my intention; I wrote what I did only because I've been getting quite a number of reviews lately from readers wanting Tony and Ziva to get together, and since this fic was never a purely shipper fic to begin with (as I mentioned in earlier A/Ns) I didn't see any harm in giving the readers a definitive answer as to how Tony and Ziva would end up. I never realized that that meant the ending was spoilt because ... well, I don't see this as a romance fic in the first place, haha. Yes, there are romantic elements involved, especially on Tony's part, but the main focus is on how Ziva deals with what she experienced in Somalia—you will please note that I never mentioned what would happen to Ziva by the end of this story. Or Tony as an individual, for that matter.**

**And that, basically, was the point of the previous chapter's A/N—What I meant to say is that if you're here to see Tony and Ziva get together, you will be disappointed and I don't want to string you along any more than I need to. If you're here to see how Ziva works through her experiences and how Tony helps her, then by all means, please read on, because there are honestly a lot of things which happen before the end. I feel like you might still be surprised by this fic because, plot twists notwithstanding, I wasn't very specific in my spoiler anyway. It could have meant anything from _almost there, __just a little bit closer _to _that's barely just a hint! _:P**

**That's all. Hope you enjoy this chapter; see you all next week!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-Four**

Peace offerings are made for dinner that night, and breakfast the next morning, and dinner the next night, too; in that manner, he and Ziva fall into a pattern of friendship that is much more equal and much more like the functional side of their former work partnership than anything has been thus far. Ziva still refuses to step out of the house, but he buys home groceries when they eventually run out of Abby's microwaveable meals; his partner cooks and he washes, and there is the understanding between them that these are their individual roles and that both of them are content with the way things are.

"After dinner" consists of either book-reading or movie-watching. To be precise, they both partake in the movie-watching, while he allows her only to read to him; she seems happy to do that, though, as she waits for him to put his feet in her lap and then proceeds to go through pages and pages of words he either doesn't care about or has never heard of. But he listens. She reads for hours, and he listens for hours to her voice, the cadence of her recitation, the rise and fall of her pitch—if he is to be asked later what she had read to him, he won't be able to remember. All he knows is that she has painted magic time and again because he hears life come back into her reading, and he hears life come back into _her._

That is all that matters to him.

xoxo

It's only three weeks later that he finally dares to bring up the idea of therapy once more. By now, it's been a little over two months since he last suggested therapy to her; it surprises him when her reaction is yet again different from the last time they had talked about things.

This time, he is seated at the dining table where she stands folding clean laundry; when she pulls out a pair of his shorts from the pile of clothes in the hamper, flattens it, and meticulously smoothens out a crease near its crotch, he feels an odd tingle on the back of his neck that he'd rather not read too much into.

"Ziva?" he blurts out, more to break the silence than anything else. She hums questioningly without looking at him, and he finds himself drawing a blank as to how to continue his sentence. So, he racks his brain and decides that it's finally time to bring up the topic they have put aside for so long. "Have you thought about um … about…"

Yet, he can't bring himself to say it. The idea has been preying on his mind for the last week or so, but he can't find the guts in him to break the silence on the subject because they've been good. So good. They've been best friends, and he can't bear with ever being at odds with her again. And _yet,_ he can't stand the thought of her being housebound forever because of his cowardice, either. Ziva would not think to seek out a therapist on her own—and so, it is up to him to remind her of the possibility at intervals. Even if it results in another breakdown between them.

When she stares at him in confusion, he bites down on his tongue and opens his mouth to try again. "Therapy," he finishes meekly. "For the panic attacks."

The harsh bark of laughter that exits her mouth isn't what he's been expecting. But when his shorts have landed atop a pile of his other shorts—all of which had been folded by her, much to his discomfiture—her gaze drops and her shoulders fall, and she sighs. "Yes," she admits, and he blinks in surprise. She gestures at the piles of clean laundry on the table. "We both know why I am folding all of this, Tony. You do the washing, I do the folding; yes? But things are fixed this way and are not negotiable only because I dare not step out to the laundry room. Just like I dare not go out, even only for groceries. It is too unfair to you, because you never get a say in what you would like to do instead."

"I don't care about fairness, Ziva," he reminds her. "That's not why I brought therapy up."

"I know you don't, but I do. And … back when I was first discharged from the hospital—when they first moved me into the room at … I've no idea where it is, actually—you were the one who did all my laundry. _Including _my underwear. By _hand._" She turns flaming red and looks away. "While I sat there like a useless lump of wood. And you never said anything."

"Ziva." He shifts closer to catch hold of her hand, his embarrassment at being so intimately acquainted with her overridden by her guilt. "I did what I had to do so that you'd have space to get better, y'know? It's not like I thought too much about them. They were just clothes; they didn't take a whole lotta my effort to wash."

She smiles slightly and lifts their hands, brushing her lips feather-light across his skin, and his heart flutters. "I am better now, am I not?" she asks, her voice thick with emotion. "Thanks to you."

"I guess," he answers cautiously, because he has no idea where she's going with this.

"Then it is time I gave back." She meets his gaze steadily. "I want to do this, Tony. For you and for me. I will probably end up regretting my choice when I break down in the middle of the psychiatrist's office, but…"

"You don't have to do this _now, _y'know," he says quietly when she doesn't finish her sentence. He lifts and drops his shoulders, hoping she knows that he understands how hard it'd be for her. "I just … don't want you to put it out of your mind completely."

Her gaze softens impossibly as she rubs her thumb across his skin. "I _want _to do this now. Just because I have my doubts does not mean I have not decided that this will be the best option for me—you know me, Tony. I am not made for therapy; I have too many demons that I would like to hide. But I cannot carry them forever and I cannot unburden them onto you, and a therapist would be the next best thing."

"You know I'm _always _here for you, right?"

"I know. I also know that if I were to talk, you would listen." She squeezes his fingers once. "But one thing I have learnt is that whatever happens to me impacts you, Tony. If I am having a panic attack, you are the one who gets distressed. When I told you that I wanted to be independent, you were the one who was afraid I would cut you out of my life. And when I was thinking that there was nothing left of me, you were the one who insisted hard-headedly on picking up all the pieces. I _know _you would listen if I were to talk, Tony, but I also know that what I could tell you would hurt you more than it could ever hurt any therapist used to hearing such stories. I would like to choose to go to someone else because I would like to keep what we have here safe. Happy. _Intact. _So, please just make sure I do this, Tony. Please just make sure I don't quit—that's all I ask."

He nods jerkily, wondering why the backs of his eyelids burn. "I promise." He stops and swallows the lump in his throat, trying to summon up his courage to tell her the simple truth. "Have I told you lately how incredible I think you are, Ziva?"

Her beautiful eyes appear to shine as she leans forward, never letting go of his hand, to press a warm kiss to his forehead. "You never let me forget it."


	25. Chapter Twenty-Five

**Warning for implied mention of rape, torture, and uh ... questionable sexual practices? Idk, a lot of things, basically :P _But _it's all mentioned pretty subtly, so if you were fine with what was in previous chapters, you'll probably be fine with what's in this chapter!**

**Enjoy, everyone! Please review!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-Five**

Ducky becomes Tony's first order of business the next morning.

A quick talk with the medical examiner later, Tony decides to take a day off in the next week to accompany Ziva to the therapist's office and make an appointment; he calls Ziva at lunch and tells her accordingly. There is a long pause on her end of the line before she asks, her voice small, if they cannot make the appointment over the phone instead. It takes forty minutes before Tony can coax her into daring to take that first, tiny step out—and even then, he returns home that evening to a Ziva who is both tense and nervous.

xoxo

He hears the low growl and the angry clatter the moment he steps out of the shower, and he skids into the bedroom to see Ziva sitting on a corner of his bed with her back towards him, her shoulders rigid and her head oriented towards where her hairbrush lies quivering on the floor.

"Whoa," he mumbles, and she startles violently. He holds up his hands when she turns to him. "What did the hairbrush do to you?"

"_I hate this hair,_" she merely growls, yanking on her hair rather brutally before glaring pointedly at his towel-clad form. He swallows.

"I'll be right back," he answers, returning into the bathroom to dress.

When he comes out again, the hairbrush has been retrieved, but Ziva's head is bowed and her hair remains untouched. He taps on her shoulder to alert her as to his presence before scooping the hairbrush from her lap and swinging onto the bed to sit behind her. Gathering up her hair, he starts to work through the numerous tangles.

"So, why do you hate your hair?" he asks conversationally, and her chest heaves.

"N-nothing. It's nothing."

"I'm assuming it's not for some diva-like reason," he prattles on, "because—"

"He touchedthis hair." Her answer, hurt and quiet, makes his heart stop. "He _touched my_ _hair, _Tony."

"Who?" he asks, careful not to slow his pace of brushing.

"You _know _who. He liked to … jerk my head back a lot as he … did things—and it's just, with the motions of brushing…. I've been trying not to remember, but it's getting to be too m-much."

He lays the brush down cautiously. "Okay. I'll take you to a hair salon after the therapist's on Monday; how 'bout that? We'll cut it shorter, and it'll be a lot easier to deal with."

"No. Now,_ I want to cut it now!_" she slurs with sudden urgency, sounding almost hysterical.

"Zi, I don't know how to cut hair, and all the hair salons are closed at this hour."

"Then give me a pair of scissors," she demands, turning towards him with her eyes wild, "I will cut it all myself!"

"I'm not gonna give you a pair of scissors when you're in this state," he protests, and a panicked cry exits her throat. He grabs her hands quickly. "Zi. Ziva! Hey! I'm right here. Come back to me. Please."

With a choked sob, her attack—whatever scary kind it is—fades as quickly as it had appeared, and she blinks rapidly as she drops her hands from his. "I … apologize, Tony."

"Hey." He shifts forward and gathers her into his arms, rubbing small circles into her back. "It's alright. It's okay."

"It is not okay. I act like a crazy woman," she mumbles against him.

"Ah, who on this Earth isn't crazy anyway, hmm?" he replies, and she makes a low gurgling noise in her throat that might be a failed attempt at laughing. "Besides, _I _fuss way more over my hair than you do."

An _oof _escapes his lips when Ziva thwacks him in the arm. "It's not that funny," she murmurs softly, even though he sees the corners of her mouth twitching for the first time that evening.

"You think it is," he points out.

She mumbles something incoherent before pressing her face into him and inhaling deeply. His shirt feels damp when she lifts her head again, but he doesn't bring her attention to it. "I want them to go away, Tony," she whispers.

"They will, eventually," he answers, smiling bravely at her with a sureness he does not feel.

"_When?_"

"I can't give you a deadline, Zi, but I can promise to be there until they do."

She hesitates. "But what if they never go away?"

"Well, then I guess this ole guy right here is never gonna leave you alone, huh?" he jokes weakly.

She snorts, though, and her eyes light up. "You are an idiot, Tony."

"I'm a _lovable _idiot," he corrects with a smirk.

She doesn't answer for the longest period of time, until he starts to wonder if he's gone so far over the line that there isn't even a mark in the dust by now.

But then, "Maybe," she concedes as she slips her own arms around his waist, and his heart flutters madly.

xoxo

After a while, he gets her to sit up.

After a while, too, he gets her to turn around and let him run her brush through her hair. He tries to tame her wild curls and makes sure to talk to her endlessly as he does so, practising what he does best just so her bad memories will not overwhelm her. When he is done, he lays down the brush and she curls herself right back into his arms; surprised, he holds her gently, and she asks the one question that he thinks he might always be most ill-prepared to answer.

"Do you think I will ever have the life I want to have?" Her tone is flat and defeated, and it makes him physically hurt.

"What kind of life do you want to have?" he murmurs.

She lifts a hand, as if to illustrate a point, and then drops it. "Free. Independent. As a working woman. Perhaps as a mother, with a husband who loves her and two children whom she adores … and a dog, because her children would want one and she wouldn't know how to refuse them the pet which would become their best friend. Safe. Happy. Untainted."

Her voice breaks on the last word, and it makes him want to cry all the more. "Yeah," he answers, swallowing. "Because you're not tainted, Zi, and you'll see that when you meet the man of your dreams, who will also see that you're the woman of his dreams."

Her chuckle is humourless. "My dreams are more like nightmares now, Tony, and I was tainted long before Somalia."

He freezes. "Zi?"

"My first undercover assignment," she continues without looking at him, "was as arm candy to a high-up politician with a taste for virgins. Let us just say that he liked it fast and rough. And that my first time was not in the back of a weapons carrier, as Abby and McGee have undoubtedly told you."

Tony works his frozen jaw. Abby and McGee hadn't told him anything at all, but now is hardly the time to dwell on such an insignificant detail. "Um … was this assignment … legal?" he asks, his voice no doubt sounding harsher than he intends.

She fidgets. "No. It was off the books. But I had already turned eighteen."

This time, he swallows bile. "Eighteen for how long?"

"A few months. I agreed to the assignment," she answers softly, pulling away from him and curling her shoulders inwards. "Do not get me wrong —I wanted it. I thought I was helping. It is simply that now that I think about it, men prefer more … wholesome women … to be their life partners, yes?"

Her breathing starts to grow ragged, so he touches her arm, trying to ground her. She jerks away as if from a burning fire and wraps her arms around herself. "Women for whom sex is not a weapon," she continues brokenly. "For whom sex is not seen as the easy way to obtain information or get someone's guard down far enough to kill them as quickly as possible. For whom relationships would mean something; would not take a backseat to death and manipulation. Who … who would not understand being f-forced—"

She never gets to the end of the sentence before she breaks down completely, her tiny figure shaking as she cries for the loss of her naiveté. And he gathers her into his embrace even though he hears the subtext of her words; hears the horrifying truth that he wishes he could erase from his memory forever. For an alarming moment, he thinks he might just empty his stomach onto everything, and his body gives a violent shudder.

But then her fists tightly bunch up bits of his t-shirt and her head falls onto his shoulder, her pained sobs muffled as she cries into him, and that moment passes because _it's his Ziva. _No matter what she's been through and why she's gone through these things, Ziva is still Ziva—his brave, smart, tough, principled, and incredibly beautiful partner, even if she doesn't know it herself—and that is never going to change for him. So, he keeps his hold on her and presses his mouth to her cheek, whispering soft words of reassurance to her and soothing her even as her shaking grows infinitely worse.

And even though there is no definable sign for it—even though there is _nothing _to mark it as a significant point in time—he thinks he feels exactly when she gives up holding back her pain to give way to letting go of the past.


	26. Chapter Twenty-Six

**Chapter Twenty-Six**

Friday evening arrives, and Tony finds himself once more with Ziva's hairbrush in hand. His partner's fear of leaving the house overrides her fear of bad memories, and she has decided to follow Tony's advice and get her hair cut while already out to the therapist's the next week; meanwhile, Tony has tasked himself with taking over the routine.

He sees in her eyes a trace of uncertainty as to whether to let him do it, so he kisses her temple and whispers to her, "Relax."

She closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. "I am not afraid that you will hurt me."

"Yeah, I won't."

"But I am afraid that the memories…"

"They'll stay away as long as I'm here." He kisses her temple again. "Okay, I actually can't promise that, but I'm willing to bet on it. The _Sound of Music _for you against one of the _Bond _movies for me."

She laughs. "You're on, Tony."

It's an unusual bet to agree to, to say the very least, but he keeps up the pretence of the game and chuckles as he puts his arms around Ziva briefly. "Alright, be prepared to face two hours of guns, explosions, and really hot chicks."

Something flashes through her eyes at that, but it is gone before he can read it. She turns away so that her back faces him and takes another deep breath. "Let's roll."

xoxo

Mesmerizing. That's the only way to describe what brushing her hair is like. She remains still and doesn't make a sound except for the occasional chuckle when he dives into another humorous story; her back is to him the entire time and really, it's just her _hair, _but he is captivated all the same.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he acknowledges how off-putting it is that he should find hair-brushing anything other than boring. He thinks, though, that it might just be the connection he feels towards her in that moment. His actions are calm and repetitive, but she's _there _and letting him take care of her in a way that she would never have a year ago, or maybe even a month ago, and that warms his heart in a way that's undeniably exciting and indescribable—in a way that feels a lot like love.

It makes him almost afraid to break the moment, but the question that has been preying on his mind since the night before, when he had first brushed her hair, begs to be asked if for no other reason than to satisfy his own curiosity. "Ziva?"

"Hmm?"

"Why didn't you tell me about the memories before?"

She tenses, and he mourns the peaceful moment's passing. But then she turns around and retrieves the brush from him, entangling the fingers of her free hand with his in the process, and he thinks that he'll settle for that just as well.

"Because you were already doing too many things for me," she answers. "I did not need to burden you with this as well. I had to go through some things alone."

"You know I wouldn't have minded."

"I know, but _I _would have." She gives him a faint smile. "Do you remember when you said you thought I liked to make the situation better for those involved?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, I wanted to do that. Obviously, I failed, but … I wanted to, Tony. I thought that as long I could do this on my own, I would, because you would be much happier not knowing and I … would be better off learning how to fight my own demons."

"Ziva, I wouldn't be happy if you weren't."

She studies him, an unidentifiable emotion flickering through her eyes. Perhaps she finds his confession unexpected; if he is to be honest with himself, he does, too, even if he has meant every heartfelt word he's said to her since 'I love you.' But while he had regretted saying that, he does not regret saying what he does now. He has long noticed that Ziva has a greater appreciation for honesty—to a certain extent—than he does, and he would try to get over _him_self and his own fragile ego if only his honesty would help her.

She finally swallows and nods, answering, "I am not _un_happy. The memories do not plague me all the time; they simply got a little overwhelming yesterday."

He pulls his hand from hers to hold out his arms; she moves into his embrace willingly, settling against his shoulder as he props his chin atop her head and tries to be a little more surreptitious about smelling her hair.

"You win, by the way," she says.

"Huh?"

"I did not think of—… So, two hours of really hot chicks, yes?"

"And guns and explosions," he adds in amusement.

She is quiet as her fingers tap a nonsensical rhythm against his chest. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Yeah?"

"How do you know it is not just whom I used to be that you see in your eyes?" Her question comes out jerkily and confuses him.

"What?"

He thinks he feels her sigh against his chest. "Nothing."

Puzzled by what is going through her mind, he strains to see her face, but she keeps it lowered even when he taps his fingers along her jaw in a silent request for her to look up. He captures her still fingers from his chest and entwines his hand with hers again; palm to palm with his thumb caressing her olive skin, it feels a lot more intimate than even holding her does. "Zi?" he prompts softly.

"I am nothing like a Bond girl, yes?" she tries again, if only to confuse him further.

"Um … you kick enough ass to be one?" he answers vaguely, and when he catches her snorted 'not anymore,' something finally clicks.

And then she freezes, and he knows she realizes he's gotten it. Looking surprisingly embarrassed for someone who brought up the topic in the first place, she tries to pull away, but he doesn't let go. "You _still _do," he whispers instead, and for some reason that makes all the fight leave her body.

"I cannot," she replies, her shoulders slumping. "Not when I am this way."

_You'll _always _be a Bond girl to me, _he feels tempted to tell her. _No matter what 'way' you are. You'll always be skilled and sexy and incredible to me. _But he knows that being a Bond girl (or not) isn't _really _the central issue; not when it comes to Ziva. Not too long ago she would, after all, sooner have castrated him than thanked him if he had dared to classify her in that manner.

So he backs away from her enough to see her properly, but not enough to let go of her hand. Distant enough for her to feel secure; not distant enough for her to feel isolated. And then he picks up her other hand and holds her gaze. "Tell me," he proposes, and her eyes begin to dart all over the place.

"Do you remember," she starts after taking a deep breath, "what you said to me on your first day back to work?"

_I love you. _It's a bit hard to forget. "Yeah," he replies, hoping that his palms won't start sweating and betraying his racing heart.

She opens and shuts her mouth, words failing her before she can even speak. "I am just wondering," she says, "if you told me that because you remembered the woman I used to be."

He pauses, caught off-guard. _This _is their discussion. After months of uncertainty and not talking about things and avoiding the elephant in the room, this is what they come to—her doubting him; doubting the verity of his words.

"Have I not shown you otherwise?" he asks her, and he thinks that his hurt might've seeped through into his question, because her fingers tighten around his before her eyes finally come up to his face.

"Yes," she admits. "Yes, but I am … none of those things you tell me I am, Tony. I am not … strong or incredible or extraordinary. And I don't doubt your words, Tony; please, I do not. But maybe you hold the hopes that I will go back to being—"

"Stop," he cuts in sharply. "I don't hold any illusions about who you are, Ziva." She flinches, managing to look both frightened and offended at once. "I don't wake up every day hoping that you'll start kicking ass and killing people with paper clips. I don't wake up hoping that you'll start flirting with me any day soon, or expecting that we're gonna continue doing that thing we used to do. Three months, Ziva. It's been _three months _that I've been here, trying to get you better. I'm pretty damn sure that any _stupid _illusions I might be keeping have been dispelled by now."

Almost immediately, he regrets his words. It's a talent of his, he thinks—putting his foot into his mouth—because Ziva has now wrenched her hands from his and is sitting with her head bowed, her chest heaving. He breathes out and rubs his face with both hands. _Nice going, DiNozzo._

"I'm sorry, Ziva."

"So you agree," she asks, her voice low, "that I am nothing?"

"That's _not _what I said."

"_Tell _the truth, DiNozzo!" she barks suddenly, her eyes flashing as they meet his. "Am I nothing or not?"

"Not," he says firmly. He clenches his jaw, trying not to lose his temper at her again. "You _just _said you didn't doubt my words. Well, I didn't lie. I didn't say anything I don't believe."

"And does that include what _you _just said?" she questions incredulously. "That you didn't think I could be dangerous anymore, or attractive, or—"

"Well, what do you want? First you want me _not _to hold on to those illusions, and now you want me to develop them? What the hell do you want, Ziva?"

His anger fizzles out abruptly when a shriek leaves her throat, only to be cut off as she flees the room. His heart sinks when he hears the distant sound of a slamming bathroom door. _Strike Two. _Or maybe Strike Three, if he counts the time so many weeks ago when he'd asked her what they had done to her in that God-forsaken camp.

He wonders how many chances he really gets in this twisted little game of life they play.

xoxo

Thirty minutes later, she still hasn't left the bathroom.

Thirty minutes later, though, he knows what he has to say—he knows what he _wants _to say. He finally understands what she's asking and why she wishes to know; he's figured out, too, why it's so very important that he show her how wrong her assumptions had been in the first place.

And so, thirty minutes later, he finds himself seated right outside the bathroom, leaning against the door in a very theatrical manner because she won't open it to let him in. _Huh._ Figures that the most important moments in his life would take place in the most movie-like scenarios possible.

"Fine, you asked for it," he murmurs into the grain of the wood. "You want to know about how I feel for you, but you won't let me in, so you're gonna have to bear with this … telling-you-through-the-door thing. And you asked for it, so you're not allowed to freak out on me. You're not allowed to say you didn't want to know this, I swear to _God,_ Zi—"

"Shut up, Tony," she snaps from the other side of the door, and he clamps his mouth shut. He's delaying the moment when he has to tell her the truth, really. Delaying the moment which will inevitably end in heartbreak.

"No," he says, his voice small. "I need to speak."

"Then cut to the chase."

"It's just _you,_ okay?" The words tumble out of his mouth, rushed and uncensored and making him feel foolish. "It's the way you talk; it's … hot an' all. Obviously not now,when you're pissed at me, but on a regular day. It's the way you move, and the way you think and feel. And the way you … smile. That hasn't changed since … ever. And I'm a sucker for your smiles; you just have this way of smiling that … I don't know, you click your fingers and I'm mush. Damnit, Ziva, you _know _why I don't tell you these things."

He shudders as he breathes in, trying to swallow the lump in his throat before continuing, "But, yeah. Whatever. I just know I still love you, okay? Because those things haven't changed. And even if they did, there's just a hundred different things about you that … yeah."

The long silence after his lame finish makes his heart grow leaden. He rises into a squat, prepared to stand up and move away and just leave her to her thoughts while he tries to find a way—any way—to come to terms with her ice-cold rejection of what has to have been the hardest confession of his life.

But just then her voice, quiet and pleading, drifts out. "Don't go." Of _course _she would know when he is about to walk away. He obeys, though, and settles back against the wood. Her next question comes a little more unexpected, "What happens when I don't smile?"

"Nothing changes," he answers before he's even thought about it properly. "Told you, Zi, it's a hundred different things."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because … because I feel it every time I'm with you."

A revoltingly sappy confession if he's ever heard one, but it's the truth. Ziva, thankfully, seems to think so too, because the door clicks open and her pale face appears. She settles down next to him without his prompting, slipping an arm around his shoulder and laying her head on her raised arm.

"Hi," he says, and his voice betrays him with a quiver.

"Thank you," she tells him quietly.

He nods once, curtly, and purses his lips to hold back the words he desperately wishes he could say. Really, twice is already two times too many when he knows she doesn't feel the same way. He breathes out heavily and leans his head against the door frame, blinking back the tears he hopes she hasn't seen.

"I am not used to hearing things like these." Her voice is soft and draws a humourless chuckle from him.

"Well, I'm not used to saying them."

"But you said them."

"Yeah. You asked."

"You could have lied."

"Do you think I was lying again?" he asks her, miserable, but he has barely drawn away before she places her free hand in the crook of his neck and keeps him in place. _God, _it can't have been more than an hour, but he has missed that touch.

"No." She takes a deep breath before lifting her head, her small hand curling around his shoulder as she looks up at him. "I am thinking that … since you told me the truth, you deserve the truth from me, too."

He waits.

"And the truth is that," she begins hesitantly, withdrawing her hands, "I am often confused about what I feel. But what I am feeling here is … more than friendship. And that scares me, because we do not do more-than-friendship well, Tony. It is lies and mistrust and hurt and death, and—"

"It won't happen again," he reassures her, hoping she realizes he means it for _whatever _they might have between them.

She shakes her head vehemently. "But look at us. We _just _argued again."

"Yeah, but you know what's different this time?" She shakes her head, and he continues, "You didn't go too far. And I didn't take too long to go after you. And we didn't need Gibbs. That probably makes the helluva lot difference when it comes to us, Ziva."

She smiles at his elaboration and takes another deep breath. "I don't know how to return your sentiment the way you just did so wonderfully for me, Tony."

"I know," he answers, even though her words sting. "That's not really what this is about, is it?"

"No … it is about the time I need to figure out how I am feeling."

He nods, sighing with resignation. "I can live with that."

"You can?" she asks, a surprised lilt to her voice.

"Yeah. In case you haven't noticed, Ziva, I've been living with it for months."

She stares at him long and hard, her mouth slightly parted as a myriad of emotions flits across her face. In the end, she asks, "Why do you care about a woman whom you are not sure is able to return your feelings?"

"Because this is about my feelings towards you," he replies quietly. "Not whether you can return them."

He isn't really sure if that answers her question, but it does make her smile. She reaches out a hand hesitantly, as if afraid of touching him, and that prompts him to hold out his arms for another embrace—one that he would fall over his own feet for. But she is in his arms, completely trusting and affectionate, within a second; and a tear escapes his tight control as he drops a kiss to the top of her head.

It isn't so bad, after all. He thinks he can live with just being her closest friend for a while.


	27. Chapter Twenty-Seven

**I honestly don't know what this chapter is all about :P I was trying to make a point but I don't know if I made it, and I'm kinda ill right now so I ... don't really care to edit, lol. I just hope it makes sense!**

**Enjoy; please review!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-Seven**

At times, the thought that all he and Ziva ever do is arguing flits across his mind.

But then he remembers that they haven't fallen apart this time, and he is grateful for that. The weekend passes peacefully; he is more careful with his words and actions in the hopes of not alienating her again, and she in turn reciprocates his care through smallest of touches—such as willingly letting him brush her hair.

On Sunday evening, he takes advantage of their newfound emotional intimacy by preparing her for the next morning. Ziva hasn't stepped out at all since moving into his apartment; that realization had slammed into him like a truck at dinnertime and prompted him to suggest a trial run out of the house.

She freezes at his suggestion, looking as petrified as she does every time leaving the apartment goes from being theory to being practical. She's known all weekend that they are going to the psychiatrist's office the next morning, but this, it appears, is the moment when reality hits her square in the face.

She starts to hyperventilate.

Within half a second, he has her in his arms.

"The psychiatrist's office," she asks breathlessly, "is it far?"

"Ten minutes away," he answers, "but we're going in my car, so it's two minutes out of this apartment and two minutes into the psychiatrist's office, max."

She makes an odd noise. "Only if I don't spiral into a panic attack on the way."

He pauses. "Well, there's that, but I'll be there."

"I'm scared."

"I know," he replies, and his heart gives a painful twinge because she never used to admit when she was scared. "But I'll keep the monsters away."

"It's not the _monsters,_" she says so forcefully that he's caught off-guard. But then her vehemence is gone as quickly as it had appeared, and she murmurs pitifully, "Can we not go?"

And of course, he dumbly answers, "No, sweetheart, we _have _to go."

When her breath hitches, he realizes it. _Sweetheart. _He wonders what it is about seeing Ziva so soft and young and vulnerable that makes his brain fall out of his mouth.

A patting on his shoulder brings him out of his thoughts, and he looks down to see Ziva's hand tapping out a light, distracted pattern. Her fingers clench into his flesh all of a sudden. "It's not the monsters," she repeats, resting her forehead on his shoulder.

"What is it, then?"

"I know they're dead," she replies, sounding close to tears. "But these marks they left, they're still here…"

_Oh._ He tries to lift her face, but she jerks away, shame tainting her voice when she tells him, "Don't look at me."

"Ziva, I don't see anything," he says nonetheless.

"Yes, you do. You see it in my eyes and my face and my hair; you just don't realize it because you already know what happened to me."

"No, I see only you. There's nothing else there."

"_Then you're not looking hard enough._" She finally gazes at him, her eyes shining. "I saw the looks they gave me in the hospital. The doctors and the nurses and the other patients. I was cut and bruised everywhere, and I had to go for MRIs and all sorts of scans and tests, and it was just … they were trying to figure out what was broken about me."

"Zi, you're not broken at all." He pulls her to him and rests his forehead against hers, desperate to find a way to comfort her, but she draws away.

"Do you think people can still look at me and believe that I'm a whole person?"

"Yes, because you _are _a whole person."

"Forget it." She starts to shake her head. "You don't understand." She turns away, her figure exemplifying dejectedness, and he knows he has exactly three seconds to convince her that he is trying his best to understand or she will retreat into her shell and never open up to him again.

"Okay, okay." He holds up his hands. "Okay, maybe I'm biased."

Her head shoots up at that, her eyes hurt; but it is, strangely, what keeps her from pushing him away again. So, he wraps his arms around her tightly, hoping that she will stay in his embrace as he says, "But maybe you are, too." She hits him. He holds his ground as a devastated sob escapes her lips. "Maybe we both are a little. Maybe I'm wrong but maybe you're not as broken as you think, and the only way we're gonna find out is if we work towards a middle ground together, y'know?"

"A middle ground?" she repeats shakily.

"Yeah. 'Cause right now, I really don't get it but I want to. Help me to, Ziva."

It takes her an eon, but she finally relents. She steps back the tiniest bit—slow and uncertain—and he lets her go just far enough for him to see what she's going to do. She lifts the hem of her shirt. Three inches; no more, no less. But it's enough for him to have to tamp down the impulse to step back at the scars marring her once flawless skin.

"Ziva." The whisper of her name falls unbidden from his lips, and he must've sounded more horrified than he thinks because the hem of her shirt drops down and her eyes tear up.

She glares at him, her chin quivering as she says in a surprisingly firm voice, "Well, now you know the beginning."

Resignation. That's what he hears in her voice. Acceptance that from this day forward, he will see her in a different light and judge her just as she thinks others have judged her. Firm belief that what she has just shown him is the last straw; the final nail into the coffin for their relationship, and that he will begin to push her away despite the fact that he has seen a much more fragile side of her so far.

He swallows and nods and replies, "Yes, now I know," and when she closes her eyes, a single tear rolling down her cheek, he gathers her into his arms and kisses her forehead _once, twice._ "And I don't _care,_" he tells her fiercely, and she trembles violently.

"You must care," she answers, and he understands that it is not an order but a statement of wavering certainty.

"I don't, because I know you, and I know how beautiful you are both on the inside and the outside." He's not sure he's ever said anything quite as cheesy, confessions of love included, but it makes her lips twitch. Braving the opportunity, he rubs his thumb along her cheekbone. "And you know everyone who knows you believes that, too."

She lowers her eyes and shakes her head. "But the rest of the world…"

"Will see only what you allow them to," he finishes firmly.

"I am still broken, and I know they can see it."

"How, huh?"

She hesitates, her mouth parted as her eyes dart left and right, and he waits for her to come up with the answer that he doesn't think she quite has. "It is _stupid,_" she finally whispers. "I know I washed away everything that I could, but when people look at me, it doesn't feel quite like that. It feels like I am marked by my own blood; by the dirt. I am a failed warrior. People look at me and I wonder if they know how close my life was to being taken."

"No." His word is firm; resolute, and he can tell that it shakes her deeply, because she looks up at him with incredulity. _"How do you know?"_

So, he slips his fingers into her hair, stroking gently against her nape, and her breath hitches again. "Because _I _don't know anything, and I've spent almost every free moment I have had in the past three months with you. Look, I'm not gonna pretend I'm happy about being clueless, but the truth is I don't know anything unless you tell me, Ziva. 'Cause, y'know, you're … still beautiful. So beautiful."

"You are biased, Tony, remember?" she reminds him, even though he sees the shadow of the smile he's always loved on her face.

"Yeah. But better a biased opinion from your best friend than an objective opinion from someone who doesn't know you at all."

She gives him a curious look just then. He opens his mouth to ask her what that's all about, but she just squeezes his arm, her head dipping the slightest as she says, "Thank you."

And so, he rubs her back and presses his lips into her warm hair, hoping that he can reassure her just as much the next morning.


	28. Chapter Twenty-Eight

**Chapter Twenty-Eight**

Early the next morning finds them dressed, breakfasted, and standing in the entryway.

"Ready?" he asks, giving her a quick squeeze around the waist with one arm and picking up his car keys with a free hand, and she nods bravely.

"This is ridiculous." She swallows. "I have _been _outside before."

She had ended up in a meltdown the last time she stepped out, but he doesn't remind her of that. Instead, he simply hums in agreement and opens the front door, not giving her a chance to back out. She takes a hesitant step forward but then stops, nervousness shining in her eyes.

"Tell me they won't see it, Tony," she says, much more as a plea than a command.

"They won't." He holds out his hand, and she crushes the life out of it. He tries hard not to wince. "Really, with my hot-looking ass in these expensive-as-hell jeans, no one's gonna pay attention to you."

That makes her smile before she shakes her head. "You are an idiot."

"So you tell me." He grins. "This piece of ass _is _hot, though."

That, apparently, still elicits the same reaction from her as it would have two years ago, and he takes advantage of her distraction to pull her out of the apartment. He lets her bury her head into his shoulder as he locks up and ignores the passing neighbour, but Ziva jumps and draws back when the woman accidentally bumps into them, and the neighbour sends a couple of raised eyebrows their way.

Ziva closes her eyes. "Um. Nothing."

He gathers her into his arms, lowering his head and whispering, "Hey, strawberry blonde over there just has eyebrow issues, okay? Ignore her."

His partner chuckles. "'Eyebrow issues'?"

"Yeah. Her mum never taught her not to make funny faces at people, so her face kinda froze that way … ignore that," he mumbles as Ziva shoots him an odd look. "It's just something we say, okay?"

"Okaaay." She sucks in a deep breath. "Is this what you will be doing all day, Tony?"

"Only if you want me to," he answers, knowing that she's referring to his eccentric distraction techniques. He pauses, about to ask her if they're too much when she nods and shakily grabs his hand.

"Lead the way, please."

He does.

xoxo

A little more than two hours later, they are home.

She is tired—he can tell. Even though they had only gone to two places and she had managed to keep her anxiety at a controllable level for almost the entirety of the trip, it had still taken a lot out of her; she is currently curled up on the couch with a book, but the haunted look in her eyes suggests to him that she is not actually paying any attention to the literary material.

He sits down next to her, holding up his hands when he makes her jump. "It's just me," he reassures her, and she makes a noise of annoyance.

"I knew that."

"Did you?" he teases. "You seemed pretty engrossed in your book."

She shoots him a sharp look. "I wasn't, and you knew that. That's why you're here."

"That's true," he admits, surprised at the easiness with which she confesses to her distraction. "What's wrong?"

Her hand comes up to touch her much-shortened curls. "Nothing," she whispers. "Go do whatever you need to do, Tony. I am fine."

"Got nothing to do," he answers, repressing the urge to tell her not to start with the _I am fine _already. "I'm supposed to be at work, remember?"

She rolls her eyes. "Go to work, then."

"No can do. I took the day off, and I intend to make the most of it."

She smiles faintly at him, a move which he suspects is meant to put him off guard more than anything else. "Why don't you go watch a movie then, hmm?"

"I prefer to hang out here," he replies cheekily, and she sighs.

"What do you think of my hairstyle?" she asks abruptly, and he blinks. Of everything he had been expecting her to say, this hadn't been one of his guesses.

"I liked the old one better," he answers honestly, reaching out to touch her arm as she lowers her eyes, "but this one is good, too."

"Really?" she asks sceptically.

"Really." He studies her quizzically, bewildered by her question—despite her fear that her life experiences can be read from her physical appearance, he is absolutely certain that Ziva is not a vain person; in fact, he'd thought that a haircut was what she'd wanted.

"It just feels strange," she eventually says, "to think that I might have to keep my hair this short for the rest of my life now."

"What do you mean?"

"It is the only way to keep away the bad memories, yes? By not giving them the opportunity to overwhelm me."

_Oh. _He reaches out to rub her cheek. "The memories will fade after a while, I bet."

"I have never been held back by my limits before," she presses out through gritted teeth, suddenly frustrated with herself. "I have never had to cut my hair for such a reason."

He shifts closer to her and holds out his arms; she settles into his side. "You still look _beautiful,_" he tells her softly, tucking some stray curls behind her ear. "You know that, right?"

She shakes her head. "It's not that. It is simply that … my whole life, I have been an officer. I was taught that I could use my sexuality as an advantage—that I could keep my hair in a certain style or walk in a certain manner to capture men's attention and get what I needed. And I was very good at it. But now, I am not. Now, I am restricted by what I fear, and that means that I can no longer do what I used to do." She stares desperately at him. "I don't know what to do anymore, Tony. Everything I believed in has changed."

"I haven't changed," he offers lamely, even though he knows it's a poor substitute for losing a piece of self-identity. She laughs bitterly.

"Oh, trust me, you have." She sneaks an arm around his waist. "It is not so bad, though."

He kisses her curls. "Maybe we could just find you something new to believe in."

She sighs. "I am tired of having to rewrite my life."

"I know," he replies, and she remains silent. His lip trembles. "But giving up is not an option." _Right?_

She doesn't answer, choosing instead to lean around him and retrieve the remote control for the television. "_James Bond _or the _Pirates of the Caribbean? _I will let you choose."

He chooses the latter and emphasizes it with a firm kiss to her temple, if only so as to extinguish _any _doubt in her heart that she is well-loved.

* * *

**I cut her hair T.T I CUT HER HAIR. You wouldn't even believe how melodramatically upset I am over this :P**

**-_Soph_**


	29. Chapter Twenty-Nine

**Disclaimer: All thoughts about mental health professionals are Tony's and Ziva's own :P also, I don't own NCIS and all that shizz.**

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-Nine**

"Bus-route map."

"Check."

"Money for the bus."

"Check."

"Psychiatrist's number."

"… Check."

"_My _number."

"Tony, I've had that for a long time."

"Right." He swallows and tries not to be nervous as he gives her a once-over. "Sorry for sending you on the bus."

"It is not your fault. It is the _therapist's _fault for asking me to go in by bus," she grumbles mutinously.

"He … he just wants you to be independent, I guess." Tony licks his lips.

"I know."

"You'll be okay?"

"I have no choice but to be."

He tries not to be too worried about the defeated tone in her voice, choosing instead to tilt her face upwards for a kiss to her forehead. "I _love _you," he tells her fiercely, and she blinks dazedly at him.

"You rarely say that," she informs him, her tone carefully even. He blushes and drops his hand, but she curls her fingers around his. "It is nice."

He's fairly certain that his blush deepens. "I gotta go to work. Will you be alright by yourself?"

"I have been by myself while you're at work for months, Tony."

"I know, but I gotta check," he protests, and she gives him a tiny smile.

"I will be perfectly fine."

"Okay. See you after work; I'll call if I have the time."

She nods, tightening her fingers around his for the fraction of a second before letting go.

xoxo

She is sitting on the couch, tearing up tissue paper when he arrives home that evening.

Concerned, he drops his keys, throws his coat to the floor, and hurries over to sink down in front of her. "What happened?" _If that _shrink _has hurt her in any way…._

"I didn't go." Her tone is clipped, almost angry; she avoids his gaze steadfastly.

"Why not?"

"Why do you think, Tony? I got to the bus stop and there were people there."

The disdain in her voice makes his heart ache. "What happened?" he repeats, and she breathes out.

"There was a woman there. She reminded me of a patient at the hospital who _wouldn't stop_ staring at me. This woman looked _just_ like her and when she looked at me, I just … could not take it."

"Ziva," he sighs.

"I know it is stupid, okay?" she says angrily, the tissue becoming shredded under her fingers' jerky movements. "Shut up. I could have lied to you. And I never asked you to send me to the therapist's."

"You wanted it, though," he points out.

"Well, I was _stupid _enough to want wrongly."

She turns her head away sharply, balling her hands into fists as if attempting to get a hold on her emotions. So he touches her forearm lightly and—his knee cracking along the way—moves to sit on the couch, trying to slide under her rigid body without having her unleash any ninja moves on him. He ends up with her head tucked under his chin and his hand around her back, somewhat painfully supporting her weight as she curls into him.

"It's okay," he murmurs softly, his lips brushing her hairline. "We'll try again some other time."

"You should just give up."

"I'm not gonna give up on you. And neither are you on yourself."

There is silence, and then she snuffles angrily. "There was a time when no matter what someone said about me, thought about me, I could handle it—because I knew I was better than what they said I was. I was not _just _a woman or _just _a Jew or _just _a pretty face, whatever they said … now, I am nothing. I failed in what I was supposed to do. I've outlasted my usefulness, and if they were to tell me that I was even less than whatever label they could put on me, they would be right."

"They would be _wrong,_" he tells her fiercely, holding her even more tightly. "Because you're not just a soldier, either."

"I know," she answers, and her voice breaks.

"No, you're not hearing me. I didn't say that you're not a soldier _anymore; _I said that you're not _just _a soldier." She falls quiet. "Ziva, that was all you ever labelled yourself as. And hell, maybe all of us—even Gibbs, I bet—fell for that trick a little, but that's not why we're here. If we wanted someone who could kick ass … well, that'd be easy to replace, 'cause let's face it: Your skills exceed our demand. But there's never gonna be a Second Ziva who managed to worm her way into our hearts despite the fact that we tried to shut her out at first. You're the person who gives all and risks all for anyone and everyone, Zi. And maybe that's a bit of the soldier in you, but if you ask me, that's more compassion than discipline. 'Cause you're pig-headed. You don't blindly follow orders, no matter how much you think you do, or else you wouldn't have engaged when you saw me go down."

"We are back to that, hmm?" she questions shakily, and he leans his forehead against hers.

"Yeah. 'Cause I never thanked you for caring so damn much. For saving me from myself when I was hell-bent on self-destructing, because you saw a bit of good in me and you wanted to make sure I never lost it. That wasn't the soldier part of you speaking; that was just _you. _You see good and you want to bring it out in others. And I'll tell you what, sweetcheeks—maybe you think you outlast your usefulness if you fail on an assignment, but the truth is that you've never been more beautiful than when you start _caring._"

She sniffles, turning her face into him when a single tear escapes her control. "But what if I can't care anymore?" she mumbles.

"I don't believe that." He strokes her cheek gently. "Because you already do."

She lifts her face. "About you?"

"Yeah." His heart skips a beat. "And Gibbs. And Abby. And everyone else. You never lost yourself, Ziva. You think you have, but this part of you that still _cares, _that still wants to see the good in people, is still here. And this is the most important part, because it shows how you're still better than any label anyone could ever put on you."

She brushes away the tear with the back of her hand. "Thank you," she tells him, and he kisses the top of her head in response.

She never does tell him whether she believes him or not, but when he eventually summons up the courage to ask her if she is willing to try again, she does nod.

xoxo

That Thursday, two days after Ziva missed her therapy session, Tony takes another half-day off to accompany her to the psychiatrist's once more. He hears through the grapevine (read: Abby) that Director Vance is becoming unhappy over the increasing amount of leave that he takes and has ordered Gibbs into the office for a pissing match as a result, but the senior field agent proceeds anyway, knowing that some things are just more important than work.

For the first time in his life, though, he realizes how difficult the conflict between job and family can be if he is unable to lose one or the other. Ziva is family, in a sense; he had once told himself that he would choose her over anything else, including the security of his job, and his conviction still stands—but _because _he would choose her over anything else, his job too becomes indispensable. Food costs money. Rent costs money. Water and electricity cost money. The psychiatrist costs money. Providing Ziva with a good second chance at life costs money in the harsh, materialistic world they live in, in essence, and sacrificing his job means that he might ruin any chances Ziva has of rediscovering what she had lost in the terrorist camp.

He finds the Catch 22 highly ironic.

These problems weigh heavy on his mind as he loads Ziva—who is surprisingly twitchy, despite the fact that she'd already once made it to the bus stop _by herself_—into his car. But Gibbs had signed off on the leave request, and Tony has to take his team's word for now that things will work out fine, because he knows well enough that he cannot fight all of his fights on his own.

This time, he sends Ziva directly into the psychiatrist's office and sits in the front room to wait for her hour-long session to finish (he had called ahead the day before and secured the only other empty slot in the week, much to Ziva's somewhat conflicting chagrin and relief). Halfway through the hour, McGee sends him a text: The yelling match between Gibbs and Vance has finished, and Gibbs has emerged the winner; Vance 'understands' why Tony needs the time off and has granted the senior field agent some leeway on the condition that Ziva 'DESPERATELY' needs his support.

He frowns at the emphasis in McGee's text message. 'Desperately' could mean anything from a complete Ziva breakdown to her merely needing his presence as a motivator, and he has no idea when Ziva will _stop _desperately needing his help—it could be anytime from the next week to the year after next.

Somehow, he doubts that Vance will let him take a half-day (or more if necessary) off every week for the future twelve months to come.

So when Ziva emerges from her session looking slightly jittery, he finds that his nervous energy almost equals hers.

His job is safe for now, though, and he tries to find some comfort in that.


	30. Chapter Thirty

**[Insert disclaimer here about not being an expert on psychology stuff.] Seriously, guys :P I haven't finished all studies needed for me to become a fully qualified psychologist, and I'm not licensed, either. So ... [something about not trying this at home :D]**

**Also: Warning for implied mention of suicidal attempts (in general, not by Ziva). But that's just it; nothing graphic, nothing detailed.**

**Enjoy; please review!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

**Chapter Thirty**

The next few weeks pass without incident. Tony never asks Ziva what she talks about in therapy, and she never tells; she does, however, inform him during the first week that Dr Williams is a cognitive behavioural therapist, and show him a fourteen-day prescription for some obscure drug he has never heard of. Anti-anxiety medication, evidently. It works: Ziva becomes much less nervous, to the point where she can successfully—if reluctantly—take the trash out alone as suggested by Dr Williams and down the hall to the garbage chute.

On the second week, the 'homework' which is apparently discussed during therapy is stranger and involves two tasks: One, doing her laundry alone, and two, taking a walk around the block every day alone. The latter goes surprisingly better than the former, as Ziva shows up halfway during the 'Rinse' cycle on the first evening with her face pale and her eyes wide, somehow managing to be both scared and embarrassed all at once. He gives her a kiss on the forehead, takes up her hand, and leads her back to the laundry room. _We'll try again tomorrow, _he tells her—and they do, even if they don't have anything other than socks and the odd t-shirt to wash the next evening.

The third week consists of yet more 'homework' and a lower dosage of medication. By now, Tony has stopped trying to keep track of her random assignments; all he knows is that she has a diary in which she has to write every day (considered the most detested part of her day) and a few activities to try out at home after every session (considered necessary—if sometimes unpleasant—and carried out accordingly). The hardest thing he has to do, he discovers, is not to give in to the puppy-eyed expressions she shoots him whenever she has to take her medication. Ziva, being Ziva, often tells him that she would rather remain anxious for the rest of her life than take the pills. Every evening thus finds him seated at the dinner table and trying to talk her into swallowing them. Every evening, too, he has to resist the urge to pry her mouth open and check under her tongue after she has given in to his coaxing.

Valentine's Day comes and passes. He gets Ziva a box of chocolates and manages to pass it off as a reward rather than a gift (she forgets the date, as he hopes), and the smile that crosses her face when she lays eyes on the glossy cardboard box makes _everything_ more than worthwhile for him. That week, she gets through all of her assignments with flying colours and learns from her therapist that medication is no longer needed, and Tony thinks that it is hard to tell whose happiness is greater—Ziva's or his own.

Being off medication has Ziva in a slightly more anxious state than in the previous few weeks, but she persists with therapy. On the fifth week, she takes the bus to the psychiatrist's office by herself and manages to make it without a single panic attack. He goes in to work that week, and the week after next, and the week after that; while Ziva updates him on how her sessions have shifted to outdoor settings. One session simply involves walking on a busy street with her therapist; another, shopping in a relatively crowded grocery store. The idea is to get her used to the presence of strangers and large groups of people, she tells him. So, when she invites him to a ballgame that her therapist had encouraged her to attend, Tony accepts. The stadium is packed. Ziva grips his hand so tightly that his knuckles turn white, but she doesn't panic and gradually even relaxes enough to smile and let him pump their entwined fingers into the air when their team wins.

xoxo

The eighth week into her therapy, Tony comes home from work to find her unpacking canned goods onto the kitchen counter and humming under her breath with a smile on her face.

He drops his keys into the bowl on top of the shoe cabinet in the hallway and teases, "You have spent every other day for the past week at the grocery store, and _still _you find something to buy?"

She turns pink and waves a can of baked beans threateningly in his direction. "I did not buy anything the past two times I went, and you know that. Besides, we have a severe lack of food in the apartment."

"Well…" He shifts uncomfortably before whining, "I don't like grocery shopping."

"I know. It is a wonder we survived at all before…" She clamps her mouth shut, frowning for a moment before changing the subject. "Guess where I went today."

He ignores the reference to what he suspects will eventually become a taboo topic. "The grocery store?" he suggests, grinning.

She makes a face. "Funny. The hospital."

All humour seeps out of the situation, and he feels his chest tighten as his hand shoots out to wrap around the coat rack, trying to steady himself even though he feels more nauseated the dizzy. Ziva appears before him in that instant, her own two hands a grounding force on his arms.

"Just to say hello to the doctors and nurses," she murmurs in a low voice, and the nausea recedes. He finds it easier to relax the jaw that he hadn't known he'd clenched. She continues, "As part of my therapy, Tony. I am merely facing my fears."

He breathes out slowly. _One, two, three, four, five._ "You might wanna preface your sentences about the hospital with that next time," he rasps, and she twists her lips apologetically. "How'd it go?"

Her eyes light up, a smile touching her lips again. "Good. I mean, they were not free to chat, but most of them recognized me, and two of them even made it a point to come over and tell me that I was looking very well. It was … gratifying. And a relief."

"A relief, huh?" He feels the corners of his own mouth lift.

"Those people know more about what I went through than you and perhaps even Gibbs—who is my medical proxy—are aware of. It is nice to know that despite having treated me for my … problems, they do not look at me _as _my problems."

"No one could ever look at you as your 'problems.'"

She nods. "Perhaps not _no _one, but definitely not most people, and I am grateful for that."

He finally manages to pry his fingers one by one from the coat rack. He opens his mouth, about to reiterate his words from months past about how they would never judge her, when she stops him with a gentle hand on his chest.

"I am not dying," she says firmly, and _goddamnit, _he is robbed of all air to his lungs again.

A second, or a whole hour, ticks past. He stares at her, his jaw frozen, and her gaze stays unwaveringly on his.

_She's not dying._

And yeah, he's known that on some level for a while now. It's been for months,after all, that he's gotten to look at her, talk to her, hold her; kiss her, even—but it still sounds a little different when she's the one trying to make him understand that she's alive.

He swallows, and nods, hoping that he looks a little more nonchalant than he feels. "I know."

"_I am not dying,_" she repeats, and his head spins a little. "Not by Saleem's hand. Not by my own. Not by any mysterious illnesses. I have marks, but nothing fatal, and nothing that could harm me more than it could the next person on the street."

"I get it, Ziva."

She cocks her head. "I'm not sure you do."

"I do get it."

_She's not dying._

He's just not sure he's fully wrapped his head around that fact yet: The fact that not every hospital visit means she's not coming back. The fact that he doesn't _quite _have to hide his razors where she can't find them, especially since she's already been playing with kitchen knives for months and left home alone for even longer. The fact that there's absolutely no need for him to _still _be waking up abruptly in the middle of the night sometimes, disoriented and with a yawning emptiness where his heart should be, until he turns his head that few inches and becomes flooded with relief that her very real figure is asleep not ten feet from him.

"I _mourned you, _and now you're not dead," he whispers, realizing belatedly how his sentence sounds quite twisted, but she only drops her hand from his chest to put it at the small of his back instead.

"I know," she murmurs, moving into him. Her palms graze his back and her body is warm against his and the fragrance of her shampoo tickles his nose as she tucks her head under his chin, and he feels the first of his sobs struggling to free itself. "But you do not have to mourn me any longer."

When he starts to choke up, he buries his face into her hair and clings on tightly, praying that she is strong enough to withstand the overwhelming grief that washes over him.

* * *

**A/N: Just some stuff about Ziva's therapy (again, not an expert) here; you don't necessarily have to read it:**

**Ziva's medication was a type of benzodiazepine. They're fast-acting (over the course of a few hours, if I'm not mistaken) and can decrease anxiety significantly, and it was needed in Ziva's case because her anxiety was so acute that it would have hampered her everyday life functioning and her ability to benefit from therapy. Benzodiazepines are addictive, though, which is why Ziva wasn't prescribed them for longer than strictly necessarily.**

**The therapy that she's going through is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), which I thought would fit her better than primarily "talk" therapies because ... well, Ziva doesn't talk. A lot, anyway. CBT focuses on decreasing anxiety levels and coming up with ways to deal with anxiety-causing situations rather than dealing with the sources of anxiety themselves (although they would address Somalia if necessary), and is also very goal-structured (they would have a final goal of therapy and also smaller aims—hence the "homework"—each week that would lead up to the final goal), both of which would probably be more acceptable and useful to Ziva.**

**And I'm done with rambling :P I hope you enjoyed; thank you for reading, and please leave a review on your way out!**

**-_Soph_**


	31. Chapter Thirty-One

**More Tony angst to come :P hang in tight!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

**Chapter Thirty-One**

Her fingers creep carefully into his hand the next morning at breakfast.

"I have a few check-ups next week at the hospital," she tells him quietly when he raises his eyebrows at her, and his heart skips an unpleasant beat. "I missed the previously scheduled ones."

"Oh," he merely answers. The previous night's meltdown having been done with, he is intent on never bringing up his irrational fear of her death ever again. "You need someone to take you?"

She tilts her head and openly studies him, her eyes darting up and down his face as if she's trying to read his expression. "Gibbs will be going with me," she finally answers, squeezing his hand. "But I will call you when I am done."

Tony nods. "I'll wait for your call."

"And don't worry: I will be fine."

He is about to chuckle in the most charming manner possible and deny his worry when she straightens her head with a little shake and continues, "Tony, you do not have to keep it all inside."

"Keep _what _all inside?"

"How you feel."

He splutters and grabs his toast, almost toppling his chair backwards in his haste to stand up. "I'm late—Gibbs is gonna kill me," he answers, leaving her seated at the dinner table as he gathers his coat and his car keys all in one melodramatic sweep of his arm. She comes out into the entryway just as he's closing the door behind him, but he pretends he doesn't hear how upset she sounds when she calls his name.

His appetite lost, the toast finds its way into a trash can before he even enters his car. He's lost his touch, he knows, and is no longer able to feign indifference _remotely _as well as he once could—but that doesn't mean he can't still walk away when he needs to.

He just wishes the simple action hadn't brought the aching emptiness back deep into his chest.

xoxo

The day passes in a blur.

He returns to his apartment building at a quarter to nine and sits in his car with the engine off, uncertain if he wants to head upstairs. He realizes, in hindsight, how very _stupid _walking out on Ziva and then not calling her to apologize had been. He ponders staying in the vehicle for the entire night, skipping dinner and sleeping in the backseat just so that he can avoid whatever must be waiting for him in their apartment; in the end, the increasing stuffiness in the small car is what propels him to open the driver's side door and step out.

Ziva is expecting him—or at least, he hopes.

It is an indescribable relief to him when he goes through the front door and finds her in the kitchen humming again, if in a rather subdued manner, while popping something into the microwave. She turns to him and gives him a faint but genuine smile, and he almost drops to his knees in the hallway because it is not lost on him how very _lucky _he is that she is still there.

"Go take a shower; dinner will be ready when you come out," she orders in a tone not unlike the one she has been using on him for the past few weeks, and he turns his head away without speaking so that she won't see the tears stinging his eyes.

He isn't really sure how a person who feels as empty as he does could possibly feel as conflicted at the same time.

xoxo

Given how quiet dinner had been, he doesn't really expect the silent figure that slips into his bed in the middle of the night and presses close to him, looping his arm around her waist as she rests her back against his front.

He sighs into her hair and contemplates the possibility that she hadn't known he'd been crying rather than sleeping, but then decides it isn't likely.

"Hey," he murmurs.

"Hello," she answers, so softly that he wonders if he's imagined the brush of her lips against his knuckles, too.

"What's this about?"

"You look like you needed it."

He stiffens. "I don't need pity."

She turns in his embrace, her dark eyes looking at him as a hand brushes lightly against his jaw. "I don't need it either, but I did need all the hugs you offered me."

"That wasn't out of pity."

"No," she agrees. "So, what makes you think this is?"

He opens and then shuts his mouth, frowning at her unfortunately logical retort. "Okay, but _this _probably isn't for the same reason that I—… y'know, all the hugs…"

Her eyes dance with what he suspects is amusement in the split second before she sobers. "Maybe not," she concedes, "but even though I am not very sure whether I am … _in _love with you, I do care about you, Tony."

He stares at her dumbly, his heart racing for all the wrong reasons.

"I wish you knew that," she adds in a matter-of-fact manner, and just like that, the vaguely pleasant haze that he has sunken into dissipates. He shakes his head, attempting to harden his gaze.

"Are you saying this just to get me to talk?"

She pauses, hurt crossing her face. "Depends," she replies, sounding distant even though she is barely inches from him. "Has what you have been doing for me so far been a lie?"

"No!" he barks incredulously, fighting the urge to push her away from him.

"Then why should what I say _not _be the truth?"

He swears under his breath as he rolls into a sitting position, thankful that his arm hadn't been trapped beneath her and cursing the psychiatrist who must've been the one to teach her … whatever that line of questioning was supposed to be. Behind him, he feels a dip in the mattress which suggests that she, too, is sitting up, and it makes him sigh deeply and rub his face.

"You should go back to bed, Ziva."

"I cannot go back to bed when you are in this state. You would never have left me alone if I had been this upset."

His heart sinks. "So, what, this is some kind of repayment thing for you?"

"No," she answers in his ear, and he startles at her close proximity. She curls her fingers around his as she sits down beside him. "This is me, telling you that you do have people who care about you, too."

He laughs humourlessly and closes his eyes. "How can you not find this morbid? I mean, we're discussing your death like we'd talk about me missing the premiere of the 'hottest movie of the year' or something."

"I doubt even a movie buff like you could be this upset over a missed premiere, Tony, hottest movie or not," she answers, drawing a tight smile from him, "and you told me just yesterday that you mourned me. Yes, this is my death that we're talking about, but it is not as if talking about it would make me drop dead. I have more pressing worries."

"You don't have to worry about me."

"Do I not?" she asks quietly. "Yesterday, I watched you turn so pale that you practically blended in with your walls all because I mentioned the word 'hospital.' And then, you broke down in my arms after implying that you hadn't quite realized I was alive. Today, you wouldn't look at me when I talked to you, but you tried to cry yourself to sleep when you thought I wasn't paying attention. If you ask me, Tony, you _are _my most pressing worry. Right now, you are whom I need to be most worried about."

He scoffs and turns his head away so that he won't have to look at her too-concerned face. "Look, whatever shit you think is going on in my mind … you need to focus on yourself first, okay? I'll be fine when I wake up in the morning."

"'Fine,' as in successfully having put your mask back on?" she prods, and he keeps silent—she is right, after all. "Tony … a few months back—now, even—I shared with you my deepest, darkest secrets. I'm not going to pretend that that was not due to … special circumstances. But my point is that you listened. You kept me sane and made me realize that there are people out there who cared about me. You put me first, despite everything. Now, I want to put you first. I want you to realize that _I_—"

"Ziva, you don't get it," he interrupts miserably. "How am I supposed to talk to you about your own death? I mean, it's not exactly healthy to go, 'Oh, when you died, I did _this _and _thi_s.' And yeah, I did put you first, but that's different. You'd been through hell and you needed someone to talk to, and I … nothing I ever went through was that bad, 'kay?"

"You do not think that grieving for a loved one is a tough process?"

"That's not fair." He jerks his hand away from her. "You don't get to corner me like this. I have to either say that it's _nothing _to grieve for someone or admit that it was hard, and that's not fair."

"Why is it not?"

"Because you're missing the point. And the point is that it's different. _I _landed you there, okay? I'm not some goddamn _saint _of a person who was innocent in all of this. So, I don't get to stop grieving for you. And I don't get to say that it was _hard _to deal with the consequences of something I had done—"

He resists the urge to twist her finger away when she presses it to his lips, and then his stomach churns horribly at the thought that he could ever wish to harm her. "Firstly, _I am not dead, _so you _cannot _relive the moment when you thought I was over and over again," she says firmly, and his shoulders slump in defeat. "And secondly, you did not 'land me there.' This story is complicated in more ways than you can imagine, Tony, but of one thing I am sure: You never shot Michael with the intention of 'landing me there,' and it is all that matters to me. You did it to protect me. That alone tells me that you _do _deserve whatever absolution I can give you because, Tony, absolution is all you ever wanted for me."

He bites down hard on his lip. "Ziva, I'm sorry."

"I forgive you." Her breath spreads hot on his cheek when she leans in to kiss him, and his skin tingles as she murmurs, her lips brushing lightly on him, "And I thank you. So much. For having my back and saving my life. For being here, after everything and everyone. You give me hope and a second chance, Tony, and it is time you accepted that."


	32. Chapter Thirty-Two

**Chapter Thirty-Two**

"Yo, Autopsy Gremlin!"

Tony strides across Autopsy, clapping the seated Jimmy Palmer on the shoulder, and the medical assistant looks up cautiously from his paperwork. "Tony, you're not drunk, are you?"

"No! I'm … I'm looking for Ducky."

"Oh, he went home. Something about faulty plumbing and wet dogs."

"Oh." Tony slumps, dejected, into the extra chair by Ducky's desk. "I don't suppose he'd mind if I took his whiskey and _got _drunk?"

"Ah…" Palmer pushes up his glasses nervously. "Ah well, I wouldn't recommend it. Dr Mallard can be very possessive about his alcohol. Yeah, one time—… Sorry, not story time."

"No."

"What's up?"

"Ziva won't let me home," Tony whines.

"What, did she lock you out of the house?" Palmer snickers, only to quail under the force of senior field agent's glare.

"She says I need to talk to someone about stuff before I can go home."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Well, she has it in her head that I … fear her death."

"You don't?" Palmer asks, and then promptly drops his pen to clap both hands over his mouth. "I'm sorry, that was totally inappropriate," he mumbles. "Too soon. Uh…"

Tony waves a hand. "Geez. I don't know … I don't want her to be right."

"Why not?" Tony shoots the medical assistant an incredulous look and Palmer amends, "I mean, it's pretty normal to be scared after, you know, what happened."

"Yeah, but she's alive now." Tony sits up, carefully sliding open the desk drawer and retrieving a small decanter of Scotch whiskey.

"Tony—"

"Ducky will be fine. It's not the first time I've nicked his whiskey." The Italian American removes the stopper.

"Yeah but I mean, Ziva's not expecting you to go home drunk after she told you to talk to someone, is she?"

The single sentence makes him freeze—his hand in mid-air—before releasing a shaky laugh, carefully putting the decanter down onto the table, and pressing the stopper back into the glass bottle. "No, I guess not, though I wasn't _really _planning on gettin' drunk." Tony rubs his empty hands together. "For someone who can hold her liquor so well, she never really liked me drinking."

"Oh," Palmer supplies awkwardly.

"I probably shouldn't tell her I got blind drunk the day of her memorial service, huh?"

"You did?" the medical assistant asks, sounding a tad too sympathetic for Tony's tastes.

"Yup. It was her _memorial service, _y'know. It just … really hit me then that we were mourning over nothing, as in, there was no body. We were mourning over thin air, and I— … that was the hardest part of all. That was the part when I realized I wasn't ever gonna see her again; not even in a coffin or something."

"Oh," Palmer murmurs.

"So, I went home and got drunk. It was the only time, though McGee doesn't know that. He found me passed out when he went to check on me after dinner."

"What happened then?"

"Uh, I'm a little hazy on the details. But I get the feeling that's why he stopped inviting me to go bar-hopping with him."

"Ah."

"Yup. Feel bad now, honouring the memory of the woman I lo- _fancy, _by drinking myself into oblivion and forgetting her."

"Well, you don't have to remember her now." Tony barely has time to fix his expression into a frown before Palmer waves his hands frantically, stammering, "I mean, uh, she's alive, so you can just, uh, you can just honour her instead of her memory…?"

"Huh." Tony furrows his brows. "Well, there's that."

"Tony…" Palmer starts hesitantly. "I might be wrong, but you still seem kinda bummed out even though she's alive."

"I'm not wishing her dead, if that's what you're thinking," Tony growls.

"It's not. I'm just saying that you seem so focused on fixing what's wrong that you forget to see what's right."

"Well, what _is _right?"

"Well, Ziva's alive, for one thing, and that's pretty much the biggest 'right' you can have. And she trusts you, and you're friends agai—"

"Okay, I get it." Tony holds up his hands.

"I'm just saying. I mean, you're sitting here trying not to get drunk when you could just go home and do whatever it is you both do. Together."

"She won't let me go home until I talk about my 'fear' of her death with someone else, remember?"

Palmer shrugs. "Maybe only because she doesn't want you to forever think of her as a dead woman walking."

Tony ponders that quietly before sighing. "Man, I hate it when you're most likely right."

"Um, I … apologize?"

"Nah." He shakes his head, clapping the medical assistant on the shoulder once more before standing up and flattening down his suit. "Thanks, Black Lung. I think I just gotta maybe go home and celebrate a life."

xoxo

"Hey, sexy thang, I'm home!"

Tony drops his keys into the bowl and saunters into the living room, where Ziva looks up from her spot in front of the television with an amused smile.

"What is the matter with you?"

"_Whaaat?_" he protests, dropping onto the couch and draping his arm around her when she leans into him. He kisses her warm hair. "I'm just happy to see you."

"Mmm."

"What are you watching?" He holds up a finger. "And don't say the _Sound of Music._"

"What if I _am _watching the _Sound of Music?_" she challenges.

"Lie. Lie through your teeth."

Ziva chuckles. "Well, it is a good thing I don't have to do that, then. _That _is a documentary on head lice."

"Seriously?"

"Yes!" She gestures emphatically at the TV screen, where something he would never want to be acquainted with creeps. "It is very informative … and there was nothing else on TV."

Tony shudders involuntarily and changes the subject. "So, the hospital this morning…"

"All clear." She smiles at him again, her eyes twinkling as she taps his chest warningly. "And you already know that, because I called you this afternoon."

"I remember. I just like to hear it twice."

"Right." Ziva snorts sceptically before eyeing him, her hand never leaving his body. "Did you talk to someone?"

"Talked to Palmer."

"How are you now?"

"Not good yet, but I think I will be." He takes a deep breath. "Look, I'm not gonna pretend that I won't just get scared sometimes. I took a long time to mourn you and I think I'm gonna need a long time to _un_mourn you, too, y'know? But Palmer told me to come home and just enjoy you; enjoy that you're alive. And I think he's right. So, that's what I'm doing." He presses his face into her hair, and she makes a sound deep in her throat that is suspiciously like laughter. He lifts his head. "What?"

"Nothing." Her eyes sparkle as she lifts her hand to his cheek, a thumb brushing a corner of his mouth. "I am just glad to see you smile again."

"I didn't smile before?" he asks in puzzlement.

"Not truly." She pats his cheek as a grin stretches across his face. "Now, I am thinking about pizza for our dinner. What do you say, Tony?"

"Sounds like my kinda evening. Italian food, a beautiful woman, and a documentary on head lice." He winks exaggeratedly at her, making her laugh as she leans forward to snatch a menu up from the coffee table.

"You're incorrigible, Tony DiNozzo," she tells him as she drops the menu unceremoniously into his lap, but he has no complaints when she curls up even closer to him.


	33. Chapter Thirty-Three

**Alright, dark chapter here :P Conversations about rape. ... And by that, I don't just mean "mentions" like there've been for the past few chapters; I mean the whole chapter's practically about it. It's not graphic and there's nothing very descriptive, but it is gritty and there is a very (_very_) explosive argument at the end (Tony drops two f-bombs—warning right here). If you don't wanna read it, last chapter was actually a good place to stop, because this and the next chapter will be about this topic. So.**

**Also, I'll be updating on Sunday :D and since I don't want to update on Christmas, the chapter after that—the last chapter—will be uploaded on next Friday. I hope you've been enjoying this story thus far; if you're stopping here, I thank you very much for reading and wish you Happy Holidays!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

**Chapter Thirty-Three**

The next week, he walks into his apartment after work and she tells him that she is in need of another therapist.

He tries not to freak out, of course. He'd promised her to handle everything calmly, rationally, and appropriately—but her words send the very bad kind of thrill through him, anyway. "_Why?_" he asks cautiously, his tongue feeling like leaden sand in his mouth. _If that man has hurt her…._

"Dr Williams thinks it would benefit me if I had a therapist to … talk about other things with," Ziva answers casually. Too casually.

"Things like what?"

Ziva looks down. And then up again, and when she does, she is chewing on her bottom lip in a manner that he suspects is designed to keep her eyes from tearing up. "Rape trauma," she finally whispers, and he stills.

So, there it is.

He's wondered before if this is something that they would ever talk about. He'd suspected what had happened to her, and he's fairly certain that she knows he'd suspected, because she's alluded to rape several times herself—but alluding to it is different from addressing it outright. Now, the truth is out. Ugly, unchangeable, and irrevocable, it sits between them and makes the atmosphere of the room thicken with fear and anger and tension. He sees that she expects a response which isn't running away or punching the wall like he'd punch Saleem's face in, but he isn't sure he can provide her with one.

The seconds tick by.

Finally, she breaks and sighs. "It may be hard for you to believe," she begins tentatively, jerking her eyes away from his face, "but I was aware of this risk before I entered the camp. I did not want it, of course—no woman in her right mind would want it. But I would be lying if I said this news came unexpected to me, and I know it is not unexpected to you. You have to know what happened, Tony: I was one woman in a thirty-man camp. And I know you are angry, but … I was a Mossad officer. I had prepared myself for this eventuality. I just did not expect that it would affect me that much, regardless."

Her last sentence is quiet, almost humiliated, as if she is less concerned about the rape than about her reaction _towards _the rape; it is heart-wrenching enough to give him the impetus to cross the kitchen and stand in front of her. She looks pleadingly up at him, and he pulls her into his arms before resting his forehead against hers. "I love you, anyway," he breathes against her lips, because he doesn't know what else to say.

Clear liquid trails down her cheeks as she shuts her eyes. "I know, Tony." She swallows audibly, and her voice breaks as she adds, "Thank you."

He kisses the tip of her nose. "We'll get you that therapist. And you'll—… I'll always _be_ here, okay?"

She nods, her jaw trembling, and that is that.

xoxo

Sometimes, he gets the sudden, inexplicable wish for life to be a fairy tale.

For the past twenty years, he has ignored this childlike, somewhat feminine (in his opinion, anyway) yearning by chalking it up to a temporary sojourn into childhood where even the unattainable can be realized; but, lately, he's become more aware of the reason for his wanting this ideal.

In the perfect world, he could just reassure Ziva of his care for her, and that _would _be that.

In the real world, though, things are a lot more complicated, and complications come in the form of _two _therapists instead of one and a bank account which had already been stretched thin before that.

He'd honestly thought before Ziva informed him otherwise that her seeing a rape trauma therapist meant her not seeing Dr Williams (because, seriously, who voluntarily confides in _two _strangers?) and had adjusted his budget accordingly. Once she had robbed him of his delusion, though, he had noted with a sinking heart that between paying for her food and footing her cell phone bill, he simply couldn't afford _another _therapist. Hate as he does to feel so money-minded, life has sharp edges to its reality, and it goes without saying that he has to find a way to keep both himself and Ziva afloat before he drowns them both.

So, he goes to Gibbs. The boss agrees to pay for half of her therapy sessions (on the condition that Ziva allows him to), and Tony brings this news home, all but forgetting in the rush of getting things done that he'd missed the very vital step of asking for his best friend's permission before telling anyone anything—which is why Ziva now rages at him with the justified indignation of a wronged partner.

xoxo

"You told him I was raped?" she snarls. "_You told him?_"

"No, I told him you needed another therapist," Tony protests weakly, and she growls at him.

"Same difference! You told him what I needed the other therapist for, did you not?"

Unfortunately, he can't deny the truth of her words. He had, in fact, informed Gibbs that the therapist dealt with cases concerning rape and sexual abuse—and his boss was nothing if not a man who could put together the pieces of a puzzle in five seconds flat.

He has no doubt that she's sensed his hesitation, because her hands clench into angry fists. "He is _Gibbs!_" she yells at him. "You do not—you _do not_ tell him such things about me, especially without asking my permission first!"

"He isn't judging you, Ziv—"

"That is beside the point. If you had not told him, then we would be able to ignore this. Of course he knows, Tony. He is my _medical proxy;_ he probably had to make some decision about this in my stead at some point. But if _you _hadn't told him, then I would be able to pretend that I couldn't guess he knew. What am I supposed to do now, huh? Confirm it for him? 'Hey Gibbs, what you heard is right: I was sexually violated. Numerous times. Would you like for us to talk about it?' Or did you do me the _honour _of discussing it with him already? I do not suppose, in the course of 'arguing my case' for me, that you fabricated any details so that you could make my need for his _money _seem more convincing?"

He feels his temper rise. "Hey, that's not fair!"

"What is not fair? That I no longer get to control what I choose to share with the world because apparently everyone elsedecides what is best for me and I no longer get to do that myself?"

Her words injure far more deeply than he would care to admit, and he slams his fist into the wall, only to regret it immediately when she flinches for a split second. "That's not fair," he repeats coldly. "I was trying to help you, but what you just said, Ziva? That was a low blow."

"And going behind my back to talk to Gibbs about what I went through is not?"

"I was trying to help you! Yes, I may have screwed up, but—"

"You more than 'screwed up,' Tony, you violated my privacy! You already know that I don't share much _for a reason,_ so _how _could you have done this to me?"

"I wasn't trying to do anything to yo—"

"Well, you did."

For a room that had been filled with yelling just moments before, it becomes extraordinarily quiet.

Tony glares at Ziva, coming to a terrible realization that makes dread settle heavily in the pit of his stomach: His intentions will never be good enough for her. The previous few months have to have been the _one _time in his life that he's tried his damnest not to be a chump and a complete screw-up, but he's still failed in her eyes, and with spectacular results to show for it.

_Neverenoughneverenough, _his mind mocks him, and he swallows back his tears as he crosses the room to scoop up his car keys.

"Alright, you win," he tells her quietly, even as his heart shatters. "I did it on purpose. I told Gibbs on purpose; we had great fun discussing things. I meant to hurt you on purpose, and what I've been doing these past six months is just some big fat _mind game _where I use helping you get better as an excuse to mess with you just a _little more._ You're right; I'm so fucking _perverted _that I spend my time not just imagining what happened to you in Somalia, but making up details to go along with it. I get off on it."

"Tony, don't you _dare _try to guilt m—" she starts, but he holds up a hand.

"I'm not. But _you _don't trust me. I do something wrong, and you automatically assume that that means I thought worse and said worse and did worse. It can't ever be just a simple mistake to you. No, there has to be an ulterior motive; I have to have meant to hurt you for some reason. You know what, Ziva? I'm tired of it. I screwed up; I said what I shouldn't have to Gibbs. I'm sorry. But _you're _the one who thinks I fucking _make up stories about Saleem and what he did to you. _I get it: I killed Rivkin, so who knows what else I'm capable of doing? But you lied. You said I was a good man, and that was a blatant lie, because there's never been _once _in your life that you believed in me and have given me the benefit of the doubt."

With that, he wrenches the door open and steps out, desperately trying to blink away the blur of his tears as he walks away.


	34. Chapter Thirty-Four

**Chapter Thirty-Four**

She's right: He is a chump.

He isn't sure why she'd invested so much time in trying to convince him otherwise, but the tiniest sliver of hope that she'd given him for the rebirth of their old friendship has fizzled out now, to be replaced with something cold and dead and _heavy._

It had all been an illusion, the nature of their early-day partnership. Perhaps she had seen a damaged hero in him—a disturbed man who nonetheless had a heart of gold. It was that way in books, wasn't it? The heroine would try to save the hero from his demons and would eventually emerge victorious, claiming the hero's heart and a happily-ever-after for their lives in the process. Tony wasn't a hero, though, and he was far more damaged than she could ever be; sometime between Michael Rivkin and Saleem Ulman, she must have lost her illusion as to what kind of person he really was. And so, all she leaves him with is a sense of nothingness.

His fingers twitch towards his customary spot for a hip holster before he clenches his hand and punches his fist against the stuffed leather of the driver's seat. He takes a deep breath and looks out of the passenger side window towards the house opposite—a low, wide affair which sits lonely on its bare plot of land.

Gibbs' house.

For the first time in the hour that he's sat there, he debates going in, but doesn't move to get out of his vehicle. He isn't really sure what he wants to say to his boss—or why he sits there, for that matter. Maybe just to keep himself from being consumed from the inside out by the voices in his head. Maybe just so that he'll have someone to whom he can explain his side of things.

_Gibbs would understand, right?_

Movement in his rear-view mirror catches his eye, and he starts when he recognizes the figure standing feet behind his car and looking like it's seen a ghost. He suppose it's too much to hope that Ziva hasn't seen his car—and she looks like she expects him to let her in, anyway—so he sighs and pops the lock. As if she is a marionette, the motion seems to propel her feet forward until she reaches the passenger side door. Her fingers flitter hesitantly above the door handle until he rolls down the window and snaps, "Do you want to get in or not?"

She does, and she is quiet when she does, her breaths coming in scared little puffs as she plays with her fingers.

"I'm sorry," she finally blurts out, and he turns his head away from her. He doesn't really know what to say. "I'm sorry I accused you of … something so horrific as that. It was wrong of me to say it."

He stays silent, and she continues, her voice thick, "I have—… Um, I will move out of your apartment, if that's what you want."

"What makes you think that's what I want?" he asks dully.

"I don't know."

He doesn't reply, and an anxious noise falls from her lips.

"I don't know what to do, Tony. Help me, _please._"

"Why? So you can yell at me again?"

"No. I will not yell at you again, I promise. I will do everything you tell me to."

"That's not the _point,_" he spits out. "It's not the fact that you yelled at me. It's _what _you yelled at me—I mean, what the hell, Ziva?"

"I felt angry."

"Yeah, well, so do I!" He hisses and thuds his head against the back of the seat. "You don't get it. I mean, _God, _Ziva, do you even know what I wanted to give to you? I know you never asked for any of it; that you'd rather be out there doing things on your own. But newsflash: A few months ago you couldn't even step out on your own. And before that, you cried and told me _to my face_ that you didn't particularly even want to _live._ So yeah, I made myself in charge of your care. I'd do it all again in a heartbeat if the need ever came up because even if _you _think it's a dickish move, I wouldn't be able to just sit here and watch you waste away like your life means nothing. I _tried _with you, Ziva. I tried and I failed, I admit that, but don't you ever tell me that my intentions were as selfish as Saleem Ulman's."

"I did not think they were, Tony." She sniffles.

He snorts. "Yeah, that much is obvious."

"I didn't!" she insists. He can feel her eyes on his face, but he refuses to look her way. After a while, her gaze leaves him. "I was upset because … this is something immensely private to me, and even if you knew and he knew, I felt … humiliated at the thought that you could be talking about me. My life was over before I ever left Somalia. I am never going to be able to live it the way I want to; to have a romantic relationship without this affecting me in some way. And I can't accept that yet, even if you can."

"Zi, we _never _discuss you like you're some particularly juicy story or something."

"It does not matter anymore what or whether you talk about me," she answers jerkily, "I … overreacted when I should not have and said something which I should never have accused you of. I'm sorry. You have been so good to me, and I do not deserve it."

"Stop turning this into a pity party."

She is quiet for a long moment before finally whispering, "Okay," and that catches him off-guard enough to make him glare at her.

"What?"

She takes a deep breath. "I was raped, and that is that. And I need to stop acting like this should be kept a secret."

He frowns, feeling the need to change her wrongful acceptance of his mistake even if he still can't forgive her hers. "You reserve the right to keep secrets about yourself, Ziva."

She shakes her head. "Every time I do that … someone else gets hurt. And I owe you all the truth about … what happened to me."

"Why d'you say that?"

"Because you have all given up a lot for me, and I…"

She swallows hard and doesn't finish her sentence, and he can't help reaching over the car console to slip her small hand into his. Something very like a clear drop of liquid hits the back of his hand with an ungraceful _splat._ "Honesty should never be for the sake of gratitude, Ziva," he whispers.

She looks at him, her eyes glimmering. "I am not ready for the world to know I was violated." He nods, and her chin starts to tremble. "But I don't where to go from here."

He sighs and rubs his mouth. Keeps back his damn pride. Nods again, curtly, and extends his free hand. "Come here," he murmurs, and she stretches over the console and falls into his arms with a quickness that startles him. Her body shakes and shakes and shakes as she buries her face into his neck, and he strokes her short curls, pressing his mouth to her ear.

"It's okay. We'll figure it all out together," he tells her, and her sobs begin to fill the air.

xoxo

"I don't want you to move out," he says eventually, long after her sobs have subsided and she has withdrawn from his arms.

She peers tiredly up at him from where her face presses into the leather of her seat. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah." He worries the fingers of her left hand, which he'd kept a hold on as she pulled away. "This argument was my fault, too. Even if it wasn't—"

"But your crime was lesser than mine."

"No, it wasn't. I should have known that this was something private to you, and … I should have known to ask you first before I told Gibbs anything."

She opens her mouth, ostensibly to dismiss the weight of the role he plays in this incident, but then just shakes her head and answers, "I should have known better than to imply you had bad intentions."

He squeezes her fingers. "Truce?"

She returns his squeeze, silently affirming his request. "Can you tell me something, Tony? Why _did _you go to Gibbs?"

He glances away momentarily, knowing it's not the purpose of his visit to Gibbs that she's asking about, but rather the _reason _for the purpose of his visit—and he's not sure if he can answer her properly, because everything seems so trivial in hindsight at the same time that it's a tremendous blow to his ego. He can't afford to pay for her therapist, plain and simple, and even though he knows beyond all doubt that Ziva would understand such a thing, a large part of him grossly protests at the thought that he cannot provide her with everything she needs. Perhaps Ziva had been right, and he is more interested in preserving the distinctions of traditional gender roles than he'd thought; a flood of shame rushes through him at the possibility that he might be much more of a chauvinist than he'd realized.

The stroking of her soft, warm hand—the hand that had been in his—against his upper arm stops him midway through the internalization of his guilt, and he breathes out deeply as she asks, "What is the matter?"

"Nothing," he answers, and his arm burns with an odd sort of painful pleasure. "I guess I don't really have a good reason for you."

"I don't believe you." Something inside him twists horribly at her reply, but he looks up to find her face earnest and open, and clear of judgement. She lowers her eyes and clarifies, "I went overboard with my words, but … I do believe you are a good man. And I do believe you would never do anything 'just because.'"

He scoffs, and she gives him a slight smile.

"Okay, perhaps you would," she concedes. "But not for this. Not when it comes to things that matter."

He stiffens slightly at her insinuation that her need for another psychiatrist, and—by extension—her own self, are things that _matter _to him, but he can hardly deny the veracity of her words; after all, he really loves her, and he'd made sure a long time ago that she knows he really loves her. That she should consider herself someone invaluable to him, then, is neither wrong nor surprising—it is strangely even more gratifying that he could express.

He covers her hand with his own and brings it down from his arm to rest against his thigh. "Ziva, I'm broke," he half-quips, and she gapes. He quickly amends, "No, not really, but y'know, two hundred bucks an hour … it's a lot."

Instead of throwing a tantrum like he's been expecting about women's rights and how he'd taken for granted that she wanted him to pay for her therapist, her eyes widen and linger on his face with something that appears remarkably close to stunned adoration. "You do not have to do this, you know."

"No, I do," he protests loudly, putting his own foot into his mouth before he can resist. "I have to give you everything."

Her finger on his mouth silences him. "I understand," she tells him softly. "There was a time when I would have given you the world."

His lips tremble with a suppressed reply. _And now? _he mutely pleads, but he knows that this is not really the place or time to delve into such conversations. She pulls her hand away from his face with a light brush of her fingertip, leaving him confused and yearning for _moremoremore._

"I mean," she continues, her hand resuming its former position atop his, "I do know what it's like to … be in love. But you are not obligated to give me everything that you think might be good for me."

He almost doesn't hear her latter sentence, startled as he is to hear the former. Even though he's known for a long time that she had had some form of feelings for him at one point in their lives, he'd never thought there'd be a day when he'd hear her admit to it so candidly.

For a moment, he is overwhelmed by the goodness that personifies her, and he is almost breathless when he says, "I wish I _could _give you everything, Ziva."

Her eyes light up the night around them. "You do. Trust me, you _do,_" she tells him, and her voice breaks.

Her words, firm and sure and completely humbling, strike something deep inside his chest.

"Do you think there'll ever be a chance for us, Ziva?" he blurts out unwittingly, and he can tell by the look on her face that she understands what he really means by 'us,' and that she hasn't been expecting his question—neither has he, for that matter.

She is silent for a long time, undoubtedly searching for an answer and debating whether or not to give it to him. Eventually, she nods. "Yes," she replies, and his heart rate goes haywire before she continues with, "but you'll have to ask again at a time when I no longer argue with you like this."

He deflates. "What if that never happens?"

"Then we can wait." Her response is simultaneously ambiguous and apathetic, and he sighs as he pulls his hand from hers and starts the car engine to drive them away.

In the end, he doesn't really know what to make of this night.

xoxo

"Hey, I never asked you why you were looking for Gibbs," he mumbles halfway through the drive home—he's suddenly remembered that it was, after all, the older man's place that she had turned up in front of. "D'you want me to turn back?"

"I was looking for you, Tony," she answers, sounding bewildered over the fact that he hasn't caught on with her reasoning yet, which in turn bewilders him.

"Why would you expect me to be at Gibbs' house?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. It seemed like the logical place to look after I couldn't find you at your two favourite … haunts."

"Which are…?" he prompts, because he isn't aware that he had favourite hangouts at all.

"The rooftop of your apartment building and our usual bar."

He hasn't visited that bar since he'd been told she was 'dead,' but he doesn't share that with her. "And you thought Gibbs would be my third-favourite 'haunt'?" he asks instead.

She chuckles. "I thought you might need the comfort of his … proximity, no matter whether you entered his house. It is not the first time you have done that."

He wrinkles his nose at the phrasing of her sentences.

It unnerves him, though, how well she knows him—she had rarely been present whenever he was in one of these moods simply because he would never allow her to be; yet, she seems to know exactly what he would have done under similar circumstances.

"Tony?" she murmurs, bringing him out of his reverie.

"Yeah?"

She pauses. "Just so you know," she starts awkwardly, "I do think that I will stop arguing with you someday."

It's not really a comment on the potential decrease in the frequency of their fights.

And he knows that, so he thinks that the night is turning out to be pretty good, after all.


	35. Chapter Thirty-Five

**Chapter Thirty-Five**

She doesn't accept Gibbs' offer.

When the older man visits them the weekend after their fight, she firmly—if haltingly—tells him that she is refusing his help. Gibbs nods and accepts her choice without question; Tony feels a pang run through him because it seems like the setback in her progress is his own fault, but he holds his tongue and respects her decision.

That night, she sits him down after dinner, and they talk about everything and nothing in particular. She asks him about work; he tells her about the sixteen new McNicknames he's come up with and Abby's brand new lab equipment (which doesn't outrank only Major Mass Spec because of the latter's tenure status). She laughs when he describes Abby's wild bowling nights with the nuns, and wistfully tells him that she misses the team.

So, he brings up the idea of a get-together.

She enthusiastically agrees, and there their conversation ends.

The next night, they repeat the process.

It is only on the third night that she starts to talk about herself. He learns the general details of what she shares in therapy and she tells him what life had been like pre-Somalia but post-Rivkin, and he thinks that somewhere in her narration might be his key to true forgiveness towards himself for the part he had played in the entire ordeal.

Two weeks into their little ritual, he realizes that it is the longest they have gone without worrying about _the next step. _The previous six-and-a-half months had been filled with moment after moment of pain and uncertainty and the want to move on and the lack of tangible ability to do so … and he appreciates, for the first time, that the balance between trying to create a new life and accepting the old one for what it had been is not something to be trifled with. He appreciates, too, that he and Ziva still have a _long _way to go, but that he needs to think beyond helping her get better and then letting her go and then hoping that she still wants him in her life—and that she needs to plan in ways that go beyond 'percentage of self that has been fixed.' They have been focused on healing her for so long that they had lost sight of why they'd striven to do so in the first place: It is not so that she can eat properly or step outside or get past what she had gone through in Somalia, but so that she can enjoy food and see the world and make best friends and fall in love.

And as they say, it is not about the destination, but the journey.

So, they make a pledge to each other never to forget that again.

When she tells him two days later that she'd like to host a dinner party for their friends, he jumps right into planning alongside her, and they lose themselves in the beauty of a moment which goes far beyond Somalia.

xoxo

The group of them is gathered for the first time in many months, and Ziva has never looked happier at that. Standing at the fringes of the merry-making and observing his friends' interactions, Tony had noted earlier that they were louder and more boisterous than they had been in years—the team is finally _one _again, and he is indescribably happy for that.

He and Gibbs are now in the kitchen, his boss leaning against the counter and regarding him carefully while he waits for the percolator to finish making coffee. The older man jerks his head towards the living room. "Good job out there."

"Thanks, Boss." Tony grins. "It was all Ziva's idea, actually."

"Oh, no. I don't just mean the gathering."

Tony pauses midway through retrieving a cup from the overhead cabinet. "Ziva's not a job to me, y'know. She's a friend. My best friend."

"Yeah, I know."

The senior field agent lowers the cup onto the counter. "You gonna start talking to me about rules again?"

"Nah. I think the time for that has long passed." Gibbs adjusts the cups (rather pointlessly) into a line. "Just wanted to make sure you know what you're doing."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't want you to get too involved."

Tony frowns. "Don't you think it's a little too late for that?"

"There's no need to get so defensive, DiNozzo," Gibbs retorts. "What I meant is I don't wanna see you get burnt twice."

"Boss, what are you _really _trying to tell me by that?"

Gibbs regards Tony quietly again for a few moments. Finally, the silver-haired man tilts his head and asks, "Have you and Ziva thought about where things to go from here?"

Tony nods, not bothering to pretend he doesn't know what 'things' is. "We talked about it."

"What did she say?"

"With all due respect, Boss, I don't think that's any of your business."

Gibbs nods and glances at the percolator. "Fair enough. Your coffee's done." He moves forwards, clapping Tony on the shoulder and leaning in to whisper, "I'm not saying 'Don't go for it.' I'm saying you might wanna make sure she's in it for the long haul, because frankly, Tony? I don't think you could settle for anything less."

And then the boss strides out of the kitchen, leaving Tony feeling bewildered and more than a little conflicted.

xoxo

Tony is not a fool.

He would wish for 'long haul' with Ziva—of course he would. But he knows that despite her semi-promise at a chance between them someday, he is not necessarily the guy she will fall in love with.

Strangely, though, he feels he might be okay with that. He often thinks long and hard about everything he's done since she stayed back in Israel and always comes to the conclusion that she is the only woman on Earth for whom he would risk his life and then give up his lifestyle just so she could be safe, alive, and happy again, and he has no intention of having—by sheer chance and then hard work—rescued her and helped her get a second chance only to curtail her freedom and place conditions upon his presence in her life.

If her being happy means her being with another man, then so be it—all he needs is to see her smile.

xoxo

"You're wrong," Tony murmurs as he and Gibbs stand in a corner, watching the others play a rather intense _Monopoly _game.

"Yeah?"

"I've been living with 'less' all along. And I didn't 'settle' for it: I rose up to its challenge."

Gibbs takes a sip of his coffee. "A month ago, you came to ask me if I could fund Ziva's visits to a rape trauma therapist."

Tony matches Gibbs for his movements. "Yeah."

"Why?"

"'Cause I wanted to give her every chance of recovery I could."

"Is that all?"

Tony wrinkles his nose. "I'm not thinking of having sex with her, if that's what you're saying. Besides, even if I were, I don't think you could handle me telling you."

Gibbs heaves a long-suffering sigh. "I'm just saying, don't get too involved."

"I'm not too involved."

"You're _always _too involved."

Tony raises his eyebrows. "Funny, you didn't say anything when she moved into my place."

"Told ya one of you was gonna need more support sometimes."

"That, and you're a freaking bastard who likes to get his own way," Tony supplies, and Gibbs smirks in acknowledgement of the insult. "I guess you think I need some _coddling _now, huh?"

The older man ignores the sarcastic jab. "Ziva can stand on her own, more or less. You still flounder without her."

"That's true."

"But…?"

"You ever get over Shannon, Boss?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Gibbs asks in return, his eyes narrowed and his voice lowered.

Tony holds his hands up in a peace-making gesture. "I'm just saying, you're still standing. And I'm never gonna get over Ziva, but … you know what the difference is from the Damocles? Back then, the last memory I had of her was her jamming a gun into my chest because I'd shot Michael Rivkin and she couldn't trust me anymore. Even before that, everything we had was … messy and sticky and just overall not-nice. It's not like that now. I know we still argue, but she comes after me or I go after her, and we don't leave things like we once used to. We're trying to make things work, and—we'll be fine, Boss. Even if she chooses someone else in the end, she's given me _seven months _of her time. I know it's not exactly been a romantic seven months, but _God, _do you even know what it's like these days when she smiles at you and you realize you played some part in making her happy again? That you did something _good, _something _awesome, _for once in your life?"

Gibbs raises his eyebrows in amusement, and Tony clears his throat sheepishly. "I'm just saying," the senior field agent concludes meekly, "that I'll still be _standing, _no matter what. Maybe with some constant figurative leg pains, but y'know … we have some good memories now. Memories of how we _make things work, _just me and her, and … those memories will keep me going if I ever need them to someday."

"Okay."

"'Okay'?" Tony asks, caught off-guard by Gibbs' single word to his entire lengthy speech.

"Yup." Gibbs shrugs. "Just wanted to make sure you knew what you were doing, and you do."

"You were making a big deal about this just to make sure I _knew what I was doing?_" Tony splutters in disbelief.

"You said it yourself—I'm a bastard." The older man smirks again before holding his coffee cup out to Tony, who takes it out of reflex. Indicating his coffee cup, Gibbs adds, "You know how I like it."

Tony can't help it. He chuckles, shakes his head, and leaves to do as Gibbs wants, because at least the bastard cares.

xoxo

Later that evening, Tony finds himself watching mellow light play across Ziva's hair and features as she cleans up the apartment with him. Dirty dishes have been piled into one stack and mismatched cushions have been put away, but he has paused in the middle of stuffing various pieces of board game back into their boxes to observe the chocolate-haired beauty across the room from him.

It's been a long seven-and-one-quarter months, but Tony wouldn't have missed out on a _single day_ of it for all the world.

His partner peers over the blanket she's in the midst of folding to gaze questioningly at him. "What are you looking at, Tony?" she asks, her voice teasing and with just a hint of fondness.

He grins at her. "Nothing, babe."

Ziva snorts hard and returns to folding the blanket in a slightly exaggerated fashion, but he can see the tiniest smile curling the edges of her lips.

And oh, it's a smile to always be remembered, indeed.

* * *

**Aaaand ... end scene!**

**So, that's it :P I know there are a number of issues left unaddressed, including if/when Ziva moves out of Tony's apartment, but the reason for that is more practical than psychological: Ziva is in the States illegally, sort of, since she had no Visa (or passport, for that matter) on her at her point of entry. She can probably apply for asylum to avoid deportation buttt ... that's a long process, and I have no wish to write 30 more chapters of, "Every day, they wait for her application to go through." So, she can't get a job—legally, at least :P (say what you will; I've no doubt Vance pulled a lot of strings to get her a work visa for a job at NCIS). And if she can't get a job then she wouldn't be able to afford rent.**

**Which is why I stop at this point XD I feel that most of the emotional issues have already been addressed, which was the purpose of this story in the first place; thus, I bid you adieu, and leave the rest of Tony's and Ziva's lives to your kind imagination.**

**Go ahead and run with it!**

**And thank you _so _very much for reading and reviewing, and favouriting, and putting out alerts for this story. It's been a long 35 chapters, and you have my gratitude for all of your support and encouragement. Thank you. Here! *Gigantic bouquet of flowers***

**-_Sophie_**


End file.
